Senior Plymouth councillors have agreed a draft budget for the next year that focuses on building back better from the pandemic, supporting vulnerable residents in the city and protecting services that residents value most.
The draft 2022/3 budget considered by the Council’s Cabinet on Tuesday (8 February) also aims to continue delivering an ambitious programme of investment for the city that will help drive economic growth, support local jobs, help provide more new homes, improve transport links and tackle climate change.
The draft revenue budget, which enables the Council to provide more than 300 day-to-day services, will:
- Help protect vulnerable children in Plymouth, through further investment in social care, which is seeing rising demand for support due to the pandemic
- Provide additional resources for caring for the elderly
- Provide an additional £500,000 for tackling homelessness in Plymouth
- Protect key services that Plymouth residents said they value most in a budget consultation at the end of last year, including refuse collection and road maintenance
- Support the work of the Violence Against Women and Girls Commission.
As well as the revenue budget of around £200 million, the Council is also set to agree a proposed capital budget that invests £189 million in Plymouth’s infrastructure next year and £402 million over five years. A further £286 million of capital funding is estimated to be invested in Plymouth over the period of the capital plan.
This includes funding for major projects that grow the economy and support jobs in Plymouth, improve the waterfront, cut congestion and promote sustainable travel and support school improvement.
It also helps deliver the Council’s commitment to make the city carbon neutral by 2030 and includes a £2 million Climate Emergency Investment Fund.
The report to Cabinet says a range of solutions have been identified for closing the million shortfall in the resources the council needs to be able to set a balanced revenue budget on 28 February. These include identifying recurring savings of £6.2 million and additional grant allocations.
It says that while Council is able to increase Council Tax by 1.99 per cent and add a one per cent precept specifically to support adult social care, a final decision on Council Tax levels won’t be made until the Full Council meeting.
Councillor Nick Kelly, Leader of the Council, said: “Despite the big challenges we face in balancing the budget due to rising costs, increasing demand for social care services and the impact of the pandemic on our income, we remain very ambitious for Plymouth and resolutely committed to protecting those services that residents have told us they value.
“The draft budget that we are considering follows a lot of hard work in ensuring Council services provide even better value for money. It also builds on the feedback we had from Plymouth residents through our budget engagement, ensuring that those services people value most can continue to be delivered.
“We are also able to propose an ambitious capital programme by securing funding and grants from a variety of sources and this will allow us to invest in a wide range of initiatives that will help Plymouth and its residents to thrive.”