Council to meet this week to agree Bexley’s budget and Council Tax

pile of coins

The London Borough of Bexley’s Full Council will meet on Wednesday 5 March to set the Borough’s budget for the 2025/26 financial year.

At a Public Cabinet meeting last week (24 February), plans for a balanced budget were agreed. The Council will be investing more than £500m in day-to-day services in 2025/26, as well as £262m over four years through the capital programme – including £86m in 2025/26.

In total, the Council will be spending in revenue and capital an average of about £1.1m per day. This includes:

  • £65 million to provide social care for around 5,500 children and young people, and education provision (excluding schools)
  • £83 million to support around 8,700 adults through social care
  • Nearly £9m for school special education needs provision
  • £2m for school capital maintenance
  • Over £1.8m to support street properties for adult social care
  • Over £1.6m for the installation of Electric Vehicle Charging Points
  • Funding for playgrounds, potholes, highways repairs, Erith regeneration, road resurfacing, new homes and affordable homes through BexleyCo and the procurement of a modern new CCTV system.

The Council will be being asked to approve an increase in Council Tax and the Adult Social Care precept of 4.99%. This would increase Bexley’s Band D Council Tax to £1,767.65. 

Residents’ Council Tax bills will include further amounts for the Greater London Authority and other London wide services. The Mayor of London’s share of the Council Tax is £490.38 – an increase of 4.03%.

Councillor Baroness O’Neill of Bexley OBE, Leader of the Council, said:

Through this budget and our medium-term financial strategy, we are delivering - and will continue to deliver - on our promises set out in our Bexley Plan to support the aspirations of our residents.

We understand that many taxpayers are under pressure due to the cost of living. We are, as always, committed to spending their money sensibly.

Our residents’ Council Tax payments go towards paying for services we all depend on, but much of our budget comes from Central Government funding. However, the way that funding is allocated is outdated. Bexley’s population is growing, with a shift of Inner London issues and pressures spreading to Outer London. Funding from Central Government has failed to reflect that.

Our residents deserve fairer funding and we are calling on Central Government for fair and higher funding from them.”

Deputy Leader of the Council and Cabinet Member for Resources, Cllr David Leaf said:

This is a budget set in extremely challenging economic circumstances. Bexley is home to 250,000 people and that number is growing. We’ve seen demand for our services increase, whilst our funding to help meet those needs has been squeezed. The share of national funding we get from the Government is shrinking while decisions the Government takes like the National Insurance Contributions tax rise is costing us far more than we get. 

In spite of this, through very careful financial management, Bexley has lived within its means. We have been able to set a balanced budget – one that puts more money into frontline services, ensures support is in place for the most vulnerable in society, and invests in our future infrastructure and our universal services. It underlines our commitment to being an efficient and effective council while continuing to make Bexley even better."

This year’s budget is the third shaped by the Council’s corporate strategy, ‘Making Bexley Even Better: Our Bexley Plan 2022/26’. The budget and the Medium-Term Financial Strategy set out how the Council will use its resources to achieve the aims set out in the plan to make Bexley even better by 2026, by supporting residents to live the best lives possible and to reach their potential.

Managing the Council’s spending has been challenging for several years due the continuing impact of the Covid pandemic and the war in Ukraine, a growing and ageing population, increased demands on services, the impact of inflation, and outdated criteria used to determine the allocation of central funding for local government.

The Council has made prudent assumptions about income and grants in its projections for the three years from 2026/27. We are forecasting funding gaps, which we are working to close. The Council will continue to operate stringent and robust financial management of budgets and continue to identify further saving, efficiency and transformational opportunities or sources of income to address this.

The meeting papers set out the final assumptions on which the budget has been planned. The papers are available on the democracy site.