Archived decisions

Hampshire County Council Item 12(a)

21 February, 2007

Council Tax Precept 2007/08

Report of the Hampshire Police Authority

Contact: Sharon Jackson. Tel: 01962 814855.

1. The Authority has considered in detail its budgetary options for 2007/08. This followed intensive discussions by the Authority with the Constabulary and at consultation meetings held with representatives of the residents' associations, town and parish councils, business organisations and the voluntary sector, as well as a representative community workshop.

2. This is the second of a two year grant settlement and the Government grant figure is £197.3m for 2007/08 as expected, which is an increase of 3.6%. This is less than current inflation of 4.4% in the retail prices index, but more than the pay and price inflation of £7.7m (2.9%) included in the 2007/08 budget. However, the overall increase in the Authority's current policies budget (the cost of providing the same level of service as in 2006/07) was a much bigger rise of £17.1m (6.3%), mainly to meet the full year effect of recruiting Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs) which was £5.8m net of additional grant.

3. This would have resulted in a council tax rise of 13% and the Authority has decided to find savings and reductions of at least £5.6m to bring the Council Tax increase down to the Government's capping limit of 5%.

4. The Authority has, therefore, undertaken a comprehensive review both of the new growth and savings proposals to ensure that its budget results in a Council Tax rise of no more than 5% in 2007/08. The outcome of this review process has resulted in new growth of £4.4m (£7m in a full year) primarily for neighbourhood policing and reductions of £7m to keep within the capping limit. In overall terms, the budget has increased by 4.7% and grant by 3.6%, resulting in an increase in the precept requirement of 5.9%, after an unusually high one-off surplus on collection funds available in 2007/08. An increase in the tax base has resulted in a council tax rise of 4.97%, just within the council tax capping limit of 5%. This equates to £125.37 a year for the average Band D household and is an increase of less than 12 pence per week.

5. The Authority has acknowledged that, in achieving the budget, difficult decisions on savings have had to be made. However, by revising priorities and using "civilianisation" to release police officers back to the "frontline", the budget provides for an extra 84 police officers (29 new posts and 55 released by civilianisation) for neighbourhood policing and other frontline roles and 119 new police staff posts (64 new posts and 55 civilianisation). The single largest growth element has, therefore, been targeted at neighbourhood policing with £1.8m invested towards providing an extra 50 sergeant posts by 2008/009

M.J. Attenborough-Cox

Chairman

4IR280207