Archived decisions

COUNCIL TAX PRECEPT 2003/04

1. At various meetings in February, 2003, the Authority considered in detail budgetary options for 2003/04. A proposed budget was brought forward with a net expenditure of £247.61m representing an increase of £20.1m or 8.8% over that for the current year.

2. General Government grants have increased by 3.1% and amount to £184.5m in 2003/04. This increase in Government grant fails to meet the amount required for inflation (3%) and other unavoidable increases (4%), mainly police reform, increments, national insurance and pensions. Therefore, the shortfall plus a relatively small addition for essential investment in policing services, a contribution to the pensions reserve, and a likely one-off item to address a change in the accounting treatment of compensatory grant, all has to be borne by the council tax payer.

3. The amount required to be raised by the Council Tax precept in 2003/04 is £62.8m, an increase of £14.6m. Therefore, for the year beginning 1 April, 2003, the Council Tax will rise by 29.5% on the current year to £97.29 for a Band D property, an increase of £22.14 per year.

4. The Authority has made strong representations to the Government about the result of this settlement and has endeavoured to raise awareness of its potential impact on next year's budget as widely as possible. As well as joining the County Council to meet with Hampshire Members of Parliament last October, and meeting with the Rt. Hon. John Denham MP on four occasions, it has joined neighbouring police authorities in the South East region to voice serious concerns about the significant loss of grant and its consequential effect on local council tax levels.

5. Despite these strong representations, there has disappointingly been no material change in the final settlement figure which has resulted in the increase in the precept as outlined above.

6. Although all the figures are not yet available from other police authorities in England and Wales, on the basis of what is currently available, Hampshire should remain in or close to the lower quartile of precept levels and has about a mid-range increase over last year.

4IR140203