Falkirk Council has set its £392m budget for 2022/23 with Council Tax increasing by 4%, seeing a Band ‘D’ property paying £1274.60 pa (an increase of less than £1 per week on 2021/22).
Low-income households, already in receipt of Council Tax Reduction, are fully protected from any increase.
Around 56,000 Falkirk Council Taxpayers will receive a payment of £150 from Scottish Government towards their Council Tax. For the vast majority (c. 55,000 residents) it is anticipated that the £150 payment will be included in the annual bills issued in mid-March and reflected in reduced monthly payments.
This means that around 75% of households will effectively pay less Council Tax in 2022/23 than they did in 2021/22.
Capital Investment
Capital investment totalling £22.3m was also agreed for 2022/23 (projected £184m over next five years) into local communities.
These projects will include:
- Expansions to three schools with extensions planned at Westquarter and Bankier Primaries as well as Larbert High School where work already underway can be completed
- Expansion to electric vehicle charging infrastructure
- Investment in sports pavilions and facilities
- A new recycling shed at Kinneil Recycling Centre specifically for garden and food waste that will be gathered in a combined fortnightly collection
- Improvements across Council properties to reduce carbon emissions
- Further work on the extensive Grangemouth Flood protection programme
- Improvements to road safety and better cycling, walking routes as well as safer routes to schools
- Upgrades to playparks
- Investment in Council business properties
- Upgrading of MECS alarms
- Further investment in the provision of ‘changing places’ toilet and changing facilities across the area
Transform to save
Talking about the budget, Councillor Cecil Meiklejohn, Leader of Falkirk Council said: “This has been the most challenging budget we have ever set. Balancing a £29m shortfall with a desire to prioritise spending in areas such as economic regeneration and child poverty amongst many others, has been extremely difficult.
“Although we are raising Council Tax again, the additional money for those in bands A-D means around 75% of households will pay less Council Tax this coming year than they did last.
“We must make savings across the board and there is no doubt that employee costs are our highest expenditure – in seeking to reduce these, we have aimed to seek a reduction through voluntary severance, vacancy management and redeployment so service delivery can continue.
“These savings to our services will be the least harmful to our communities as our objective is to preserve our services that people rely on far more.
“We are aiming to make large scale efficiency and transformation savings – delivering services where people need them most as voiced by our communities through more effective and efficient ways.
“Last year we saw successes such as Community Choices funding that saw £2.3m awarded directly to communities for them to determine their own spending priorities.
“We have also seen success both current and future with the ‘Levelling up’ fund continuing to contribute to economic growth, the recent success of our ‘Growth Deal’ proposals with support from Scottish and UK governments and the on-going work that we have in undertaken in tackling the global climate crisis.”