Cabinet recommends council tax freeze

The council’s cabinet has delivered one of the administration’s key promises and recommended that council tax is frozen as part of a budget that protects key services, despite facing tough financial challenges in the years ahead.

Croydon anticipates a reduction in government funding over the next four years and continued pressure on our services due to the increase in the borough’s population.

Yet subject to approval by full council later this month, there will be no change to council tax for 2015/16.

The council has to make around £100m in savings by 2018, and has already come up with proposals to address this through the Croydon Challenge, a programme that will transform and make the services provided to residents more efficient and effective.

For example, more services than ever are now accessible online, which provides residents with a quicker service that saves the council money.

The council has also developed a financial programme that ensures its limited resources are spent on vital services such as street cleaning and tackling fly-tipping, education, looking after the vulnerable and elderly, and on making local neighbourhoods safer.

Cllr-Newman

“These are extremely tough and demanding times for local government, and Croydon like all other local authorities, faces big financial pressures over the next four years.

“However despite this, I am pleased to confirm that we have the council’s finances under control, which is why we are able to deliver a balanced budget and a freeze in council tax and improvements to key frontline services such as street cleaning, investment in schools and putting more police officers on the beat.

“Our Croydon Challenge programme will see that the council can continue to provide a more efficient and high quality service to residents, in spite of the funding cuts we are having to manage.

“We will continue to argue for a fair share of funding for Croydon residents. The funding system currently in place by the government means that even though we are seeing a rapidly rising population and more demand for our services, this is not reflected in how resources are allocated to local government.”

Councillor Tony Newman, leader of the council

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2015-02-18T13:57:05+00:00 February 18th, 2015|Recent news|