2003/04 budget overview
Revenue Budget 2003/04 - Information for Council Tax payers
The City Council's Spending Plans 2003/04
Salford City Council has set its budget for 2003/04 at £268.9m. This is a 7.9% increase on last years budget and after allowing for changes in Government funding and the tax base this gives a 6.5% increase in the level of Council Tax for Salford's services. This together with increases in the cost of the Greater Manchester Police and Fire services gives a Band D Council Tax level of £1,236.96, an overall increase of 8.6% on last year.
Whilst it is acknowledged that this increase is considerably higher than the rate of inflation it must be stressed that there has been a number of external factors which have served to increase the City Council's expenditure requirement. These include price inflation relating to levies and charges and increases in the cost of external service providers e.g. care homes in the Social Services budget. Employee costs have increased to take account of increases in the national insurance rate, pension contribution rates and the cost of nationally agreed pay increases. Collectively these external commitments have added approximately £16.6m to the cost of the revenue budget and they represent 6.7% of this years budget increase.
The City Council is committed to its 7 pledges 1) Better Education for all, 2) Quality homes for all, 3) A clean and healthy city, 4) A safer Salford, 5) Stronger Communities and 6) Supporting young people. Meeting these pledges has been the priority over recent years and this has been closely linked to the development of the budget strategy. This has ensured that resources can be directed to where they will be most effective in meeting the aims and objectives of the pledges. A broad summary of some of the key areas is given below.
The City Council has increased its Education budget by £8.9m equivalent to a 7.5% increase on last year. This provides sufficient resources for schools to meet their cost pressures and meets the Governments indicated funding requirements for spending increases to flow through to Education. In 2003/04 the City Council will be spending approximately £3.8m above the Governments assessment of what it thinks we should be spending in the Education service.
A financial strategy has been developed for Social Services which has addressed the demand pressures in recent years from children in care and realigned resources to meet emerging pressures on residential and home care in the elderly sector. The City Council has increased the Social Services budget by £5.3m or 8.6% from last year and this will provide the financial capacity to meet the increasing local demand from a growing dependant population.
The budget also provides for £2m of additional resources to be allocated to meet increased service demands. These include £0.5m to meet the increase pressure of addressing special educational needs, £0.2m to improve the City Council's library book stock and £0.3m to match grant funding designed to establish a kerbside collection scheme for the recycling of household waste. These additional expenditure requirements have been funded from other efficiency savings and therefore have a marginal impact on the level of Council Tax.
The City Council has continued its strategy designed to restore the level of general reserves to 3% of the net revenue budget in line with the recommendation made by the District Auditor. Both the 2002/03 and 2003/04 revenue budgets provide for a £1m contribution to be made to reserves and this will increase reserves to £6m by 2004 equivalent to 2.2% of net expenditure. The medium term financial strategy includes plans to continue to make an annual contribution of £1m until the 3% target is achieved. This will give the City Council a greater safeguard against any unforeseen cost increases.
In addition to the above the position relating to the level of provision for irrecoverable debts on sundry debtor accounts raised for our services and in respect of Council Tax continues to improve. Contributions of £0.5m and £1m respectively have been included in the City Council's revenue budget to ensure that the provisions are maintained at an acceptable level.
The expected key outcomes of the 2003/04 revenue budget are described in service terms on what it means for services.
More revenue budget information
How we managed resources in 2002/03
- Summary of variations from the approved budget
- Summary of service variations from the approved budget 2002/03
The City Council's spending plans 2003/04
- Summary of budget increases 2002/03 to 2003/04
- The amounts to be allocated to services 2003/04
- 2003/04 budget overview
- What it means for services
- The amount to be collected from council tax
- The cost to the council taxpayer
- What is the council tax base
Where the money is spent - services - at a glance summary
Where the money comes from - at a glance summary
This page was last updated on 21 July 2004
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