Councillors agree a balanced budget in the face of a challenging financial climate
St Albans City and District Councillors have agreed a budget for the next financial year along with a long-term plan setting out their priorities.
The Council (SADC) is required to produce a balanced budget every year, ensuring spending is matched by income, grant funding and, if appropriate, the use of reserves.
In common with other local authorities, it is faced with a challenging economic climate that has put intense pressure on its finances.
This includes rising costs, such as an increase in employer’s national insurance contributions, and higher demand for some services including homelessness.
To ensure a balanced budget for 2025/26, net savings of £325,000 have been identified.
This includes some additional income sources, increases to charges and reductions to services.
Councillors also agreed to a 2.99% rise in the SADC’s share of Council Tax bills.
That means a resident in a Band D property will pay an average of £208 to SADC for its services in the coming year – an increase of just 12p a week.
SADC’s portion of the Council Tax amounts to around 9% of the total collected, with Hertfordshire County Council receiving 77%, the Police,11%, and the parish and town councils, who set their own budgets, 3%.
The money received by SADC will fund key services including waste and recycling collections, planning, parks and open spaces, street cleaning, environmental health and grants to voluntary bodies.
Councillors also approved a rent rise in accordance with Government guidelines of 2.7% for its social housing properties. Garage rents will increase by 7.2%
A contribution of £500,000 will be made to the general reserves to restore them to an acceptable level.
The budget was approved at a meeting of the Full Council on Wednesday 26 February.
Councillor Giles Fry, Lead for Resources, said after the meeting:
I am pleased that we have agreed to a balanced budget despite the severe financial challenges that we are faced with.
We have managed once again to protect our key services such as our leisure, community and cultural facilities and we also plan to bolster our reserves in case of unforeseen shocks.
The coming year will see our first commercial tenant move into Jubilee Square which will eventually provide us with much-needed new income and we will continue to look for other revenue-raising opportunities.
I hope that our residents will continue to support the work we are doing to strengthen our communities and cope with the tough financial climate.
Full Council also approved a Council Plan for the next five years which includes four priorities. These are to:
- Support great communities
- Provide more social housing.
- Make the Environment a priority in all Council decisions.
- Treat everyone with fairness.
The Plan includes many of the actions the Council is committed to taking to achieve these goals.
Councillor Paul de Kort, the Council Leader, said after the meeting:
It is important that in the battle to keep our finances stable, we do not lose sight of our long-term objectives such as providing more social housing and tackling the climate emergency.
In the last year, we have seen tenants move into the 33 new social housing properties we created at Jubilee Square.
There has also been the launch of the St Albans Greener Together project to engage the community with our ambition of turning the District carbon neutral by 2030.
Our Council Plan lays out these and other key priorities as well as the actions we will take to make our District an even more vibrant place to live and work.
Details of the budget together with the Council Plan can be viewed along with the Full Council meeting papers here.
Media contact: John McJannet, Principal Communications Officer: 01727- 819533; john.mcjannet@stalbans.gov.uk.