Council tax freeze

Reporter: Iram Ramzan
Date published: 17 February 2015


COUNCIL tax is to be frozen for a second year — despite Oldham Council having to save almost £65million by 2017.

Budget proposals for 2015/16 were debated by Cabinet members last night and will now go before full council for final approval next Wednesday.

Oldham Council has to find £35m in savings during the next financial year and is also working on proposals to find £29.4million in 2016/17.

The Government promised a total £275m to local authorities who freeze their tax in 2015/16. So far only a quarter have said they will do so.

Councillor Abdul Jabbar, Cabinet member for finance and human resources, said: “People out there are struggling with the cost of living. We felt it was inappropriate to put an additional burden on taxpayers by increasing council tax. Balancing the budget is getting harder and harder, but we believe helping residents by freezing council tax is absolutely essential at this time.

“We’ve had to save £141m from our budget in the past five years - comparatively much more than many other local authorities — some of which have only seen a five per cent cut during that time.

A third of the council’s revenue comes from council tax, while the other two thirds comes from business rates and a central government grant, which will be reduced from £69.5m to £50.9m next year and will keep falling after that.