Bexley Councillors have agreed a balanced budget that maintains services and helps residents who need support the most, despite continuing financial pressures.
At the Full Council meeting last night (5 March) they highlighted the importance of ensuring value for money for residents and that every pound spent is put to good use.
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.
Leader of the Council, Cllr Baroness O’Neill of Bexley OBE said:
We have a strong track record in balancing our budget and living within our means and that is why we are not in the same extreme financial position as some other councils.
However, we are being hit hard by Government decisions such as National Insurance Contribution increases and the Government imposed squeeze in grants and redistributing the national share of funding away from us. We will continue to voice our strident views about the unfair way that Central Government funding is set.
We face the same issues as inner London Borough’s and yet we continue to receive far less for our residents.”
In total, the Council will be spending in revenue and capital an average of about £1.4m per day on services for residents.
How your 25/26 Council Tax will be spent
£91 million to provide social care for children and young people and education provision
This includes:
- 2,000 children and young people supported by Children’s Social Care
- 290 children in care
- 190 with a child protection plan
- 610 supported as children in need
- 350 care leavers
- 3,500 children and young people with an Education Health and Care Plan accessing special educational needs provision.
£135 million to support around adults through social care
This includes:
- 3,700 residents who receive long-term support
- 3,900 residents who receive ongoing to stay in their own homes
- 950 residents support to leave hospital back to their own homes
- 150 residents who received other short-term support
£262 million through the Capital programme
This includes:
- Potholes, highway repairs, road resurfacing
- Affordable homes through BexleyCo
- New CCTV system
- School maintenance
- School special education needs provision
- Electric Vehicle Charging points
How every £1 of Bexley Council Tax is spent
- 33p – Adult Social Care
- 23p – Children’s Social Care
- 22p – Place, Communities and Infrastructure – this includes waste and recycling services, parks and open spaces and libraries
- 15p – Finance and Corporate services
- 4p – Finance costs and contingencies
- 2p – Levies
- 1p – Chief Executive’s Office
Council Members approved 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%.
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.