Today Central Bedfordshire Council launched their consultation on the draft 2022 budget. Responses to the consultation must be received before 31st January 2021.
CBC want to give residents to have time as possible to have their say on the proposals and they are opening them for consultation from today (4th January 2022).
The proposals are subject to Executive approval next week, before a review at a CBC Full Council meeting in February.
The headlines from the budget reports are as follows:
- Anticipating spending some £468million on a full range of services.
- On going focus on efficiency savings with £9.6million of efficiency proposals.
- Continuing to face big increases in demands, particularly in the following areas
- more care for older people and adults with disabilities
- more support for children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND)
- greater numbers of children who need our protection
- To bridge the gap between what we need and what we anticipate in terms of income, we propose to:
- apply the Adult Social Care Precept of a 1% increase on council tax to contribute towards funding care services, and
- increase council tax by 0.95% for funding other services.
- Additionally, the consultation will highlight proposals for a further £240million of capital investments, including schools (including £10million on specialist school places for SEND), roads, care homes, leisure provision and other infrastructure projects.
The consultation is available online here (opens in new window) . Responses to the consultation must be received before 31 January 2021.
Paper copies will be available in our libraries, and we will send you some too. Residents can continue to request a paper copy by calling us on 0300 300 8000 or email: communications@centralbedfordshire.gov.uk
Feedback from the consultation will be collated and presented to the February Executive, in advance of decision making on the finalised budget which will be recommended to Full Council.