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Council tax frozen for another year
There will be no rise in Central Bedfordshire Council’s tax for the third year running after councillors agreed the council’s budget for 2013/14 at last night’s council meeting.
The budget sets out our plans for spending the £189million of available funding on services for local people, including waste and recycling, looking after roads, running libraries, children’s centres, leisure centres and theatres and providing social care for disabled children, adults and for older people.
Councillor Maurice Jones, deputy leader and executivemMember for corporate resources, said: “We’ve put together a balanced budget which reflects responses we got from residents in our budget survey.
Your feedback told us that savings should come from the back office, so that frontline services are protected.
“Throughout the whole budget process, we have been very clear that we do not want to put extra pressure on families’ budgets by raising council tax and our focus has been on ensuring that residents receive great services that represent maximum value for money for the council tax they pay.
“We have scrutinised every area of spend to look at where savings can be made and we remain determined to drive out every penny of unnecessary cost.”
Councillors also approved a capital programme of £84m, which will provide major investment in road maintenance, as well as street lighting and new high quality accommodation for our older residents.
The council tax freeze means that the average Central Bedfordshire Council part of Band D Council Tax will be £1,308.33, with all residents now paying the same, wherever they live in Central Bedfordshire.
With cuts to funding and increasing demand on some of our services, such as a rise in the number of children and older people needing care, the council has made savings of £16million to balance the books.
Most of the savings will come through efficiency measures, including:
- Using technology to run services more cost effectively
- Streamlining management and reducing administrative costs
- Merging services to provide a more joined up service to customers as well as saving costs
- Changing the way we buy in care and commissioning services jointly with others to increase our buying power
- Investing in preventative solutions to help older people stay in their homes for longer, reducing the need for costly
residential care
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Weather for Bedford
Thursday 20 June 2013
Today
Light showers
Temperature: 13 C to 19 C
Wind Speed: 13 mph
Wind direction: East
Tomorrow
Light rain
Temperature: 11 C to 19 C
Wind Speed: 12 mph
Wind direction: West
