Bexley council will meet on Monday 27th February to agree on its recommendations to the full Council in March on the Borough’s budget for the 2023/24 financial year.
The papers for the meeting set out plans for a balanced budget of £208m to cover services for the borough’s population of 250,000 people. This includes investing in services that all residents use, such as parks, open spaces, highways, libraries and bin collections, and supporting the most vulnerable residents, including people with disabilities, children in care and adults needing social care assistance.
The budget plans also include proposals for around £30m of additional capital investment, on top of £162m of investment already planned over the next four years.
The proposed investments include:
- £15.5 million on road and footpath resurfacing across the borough
- £2 million on digital projects to support service transformation
- £500,000 on improvements to the Homeleigh hostel
The Cabinet is being asked to recommend an increase in Council Tax of 2.99% and the Adult Social Care precept of 2%. This would increase Bexley’s Band D Council Tax to £1,603.62.
Residents’ Council Tax bills will include further amounts for the Greater London Authority and other London-wide services. The Mayor of London has increased his share of the Council Tax by 9.7%.
Councillor Baroness O’Neill of Bexley OBE, Leader of the Council said:
We were re-elected last May on a mandate that we have translated into a plan that will be delivered before 2026, through this budget and our medium term financial strategy.
I understand that many residents are under pressure due to the cost of living and, as always, we will continue to work hard to ensure that we spend their money sensibly.”
Councillor David Leaf, Deputy Leader of the Council added:
Despite the current economic challenges and rising costs of inflation, we are able to increase investment into the local services that our residents need and rely upon.
We are putting more funding into services to support vulnerable children and adults, investing in improving our roads and creating new opportunities for families and businesses in Bexley. This administration is ambitious for our Borough and our budget plans mean we can continue to make Bexley even better.”
This year’s budget is the first shaped by the Council’s new corporate strategy, ‘Making Bexley Even Better: Our Bexley Plan 2022/26’ which was approved in November 2022. The budget and the Medium Term Financial Strategy set out how the Council will use its resources to achieve the aims detailed in the plan to make Bexley even better by 2026, by supporting residents to live the best lives possible and to reach their potential.
Managing the Council’s spending has been challenging for several years due to the continuing impact of the pandemic, a growing and ageing population, an increase in demand and in the cost of services, short-term government funding, new legislation and deferral of the government’s Fair Funding review, high inflation and increasing interest rates. While greater financial certainty has been provided by the Government on funding for 2023/24 and 2024/25, the economic uncertainty due to interest rates and the high inflation rate continues to have an impact.
The Council is projecting a budget gap from 2025/26 at this stage. It will continue to operate stringent and robust financial management of budgets and continue to identify further saving, efficiency and transformational opportunities or sources of income to address this.
The papers for the meeting set out the final assumptions on which the budget has been planned, including the government’s final Local Government Settlement and comprehensive information on the Council’s financial plans. They are available in full online.
Cabinet’s recommendations are subject to approval by the full Council meeting on 8 March.