Council Tax Freeze Agreed For Fifth Year
9th February 2012
At a special meeting today (Thursday 9th February 2012), The Highland Council agreed to freeze the Council Tax for a fifth successive year and has confirmed a revenue budget of £602 million for 2012-13.
The tax for 2012-13 is: Band A: £775.33; Band B: £904.56; C: £1,033.78; Band D: £1,163; Band E: £1,421.44; Band F: £1,679.89; Band G: £1,938.33; Band H: £2,326.
Budget spending in 2012-13 will be:- Education Culture and Sport, £232,870,000; Health and Social Care, £130,556,000; Transport Environmental and Community Services, £62,977,000; Chief Executive's Service, £24,987,000; Housing and Property, £9,663,000; Planning and Development, £8,615,000 and Finance, £7,309,000.
The Council also agreed to contribute £39,457,000 to police services and £14,787,000 to fire and rescue services.
Through its three-year budget setting process, the Council has identified savings of £18.6 million for 2012-13. There will be no need for new cuts and the Council is now in a position to invest £4.55 million in key frontline services. These include an extra £2 million to be spent on road maintenance, such as filling pot holes and improving drainage, and an extra £200,000 to support management in smaller primary schools. These are one-off additional payments in 2012-13.
On top of this the Council has agreed recurring additional spending as follows:-
· £1 million on keeping older people fit, healthy and safe at home;
· £650,000 on enhanced pupil support in the classroom;
· £250,000 on fostering and adoptions;
· £250,000 on children disability teams;
· £200,00 on employability/youth employment.
For the second year in succession, The Highland Council has agreed a council house rent increase below the rate of inflation. The average increase will be 1.9% which is 3.3% below inflation. This will see the average weekly rent increase by £1.26 from £66.19 to £67.45.
A 1.9% increase will also be applied to hostel rents, gypsy-traveller site pitches, garage and garage sites. For the second successive year there will be no increase in sheltered housing warden charges.
Related Businesses
Related Articles
As intimated in Highland Council's budget plan, a new senior management structure is to be implemented following approval by Council 14th March. It reconfigures the senior management team into two layers, rather than three and brings Highland Council into line with other benchmarked authorities.
Today, Morrison Construction introduced some of their local apprentices who are working on the UK Governments' Levelling Up Funded refurbishment project at the Northern Meeting Park in Inverness. All these apprentices have been recruited from the Highland area.
The by-election to elect a councillor to represent Ward 19 - Inverness South on The Highland Council has been won by Duncan Cameron McDonald - Independent who was one of the eight candidates who contested the vacancy. Voters in the ward went to the poll yesterday (Thursday 11 April) and the by-election count was held this morning in The Highland Council Headquarters in Inverness.
The Technology Placement Programme offers funding to businesses in the Highland Council area to cover up to 70% of the cost of employing a student or graduate. The Technology Placement Programme offers funding to businesses in the Highland Council area to cover up to 70% of the cost of employing a student or graduate.
Following the success of its Business Digital Grant scheme launched last year, The Highland Council is delighted to announce further funding. This is to help Highland companies access digital support alongside other business growth support.
The Highland Council is delighted to confirm a highly successful second year for Public Service Obligation (PSO) flights between Wick and Aberdeen. The period from April 2023 to March 2024 has seen a substantial increase in passenger numbers, with several months seeing over 1,000 passengers using the service, and overall the service has seen year on year growth of 25%.
Members of Highland Council, who met on Thursday 14 March 2024, approved a corporate Digital Ambition, which has been designed to deliver significant organisational change across Council services, recognising the current priorities within the organisation. The Strategy, which is embedded within the wider Council Delivery Plan, has been developed to focus attention and resources on areas of change which will deliver the greatest benefit to the Council.
The Council remains committed to supporting mentoring in our schools, including the support that is currently delivered through the MCR Pathways programme. Highland Council is currently undertaking a review of Employability Support provided by a number of different council services and how these relate to the work carried out by external partners and in our schools.
Highland Council members have considered and agreed a revised draft Highland Outcome Improvement Plan. The partnership plan has been reviewed and updated by the Community Planning Partnership.
Members at today's (14 March 2024) meeting of The Highland Council agreed the local authority's new draft Community Wealth Building Strategy. They were also asked to note that a period of public engagement on the draft will now begin, with a final strategy returning to full Council for consideration in September.
