County Council increase tax share

Local residents will be paying more for services provided by the county council from April after councillors agreed a 3.99% increase in the council's precept.

The increase will feed in to this year's Council Tax bills, which will be issued during March. The tax also includes funding for the district and town councils as well as Herts Police.

The increased budget will help fund a number of initiatives, with funding for additional numbers of people needing support and increases in the National Living Wage, providing the Voluntary Sector with an enhanced package to support COVID recovery. Investment will also be made in safeguarding to support vulnerable individuals in care. This is on top of further investment to enable care worker pay increases and funding of the Domestic Violence Service.

There will also be a £10m investment in protecting the environment, providing additional capital funding to improve drainage, plus an additional £7m investment to fund the roll-out of 20mph speed limits. Active travel schemes will benefit from an extra £3m investment and extra funding for winter maintenance will also be provided.

Ralph Sangster, Cabinet Member for Resources and Performance, said: "Despite facing unprecedented pressures as a result of the pandemic, we are a well-financially managed authority and we are therefore able to approve an investment led-budget today, which allows us to invest in key areas and continue to deliver frontline services which matter dearly to our residents.

"Although it was a difficult decision to increase council tax this year, we wish to ensure that we can meet the increasing demands on our adult social care services. However, we have taken the decision not to apply the full 3% increase for the adult social care precept, but instead to defer the remaining 1% to next year, reducing the council tax burden for residents as best we can, whilst enabling investment in these critical services which matter for our county."

Hertford Councillor Andrew Stevenson criticised the increase, saying: "I have serious concerns in this climate about ANY increase in council tax. It is easy for the public sector to live in its own bubble out of touch with reality and one of the largest expenditures is staff salaries. Although the integrated plan has been carefully prepared and has followed the usual approach of trying to balance the budget in difficult circumstances these are unprecedented circumstances.

"I am in general in favor of a focused hypothecated social services council tax for greater local accountability. Indeed I am in favour of a directly elected social services commissioner. But now is not the time to impose an increase in council tax on Hertfordshire families."