County Council to freeze council tax and protect frontline services

This article was published on February 14, 2011 and information contained within may now be out of date.

Lincolnshire County Council has agreed a council tax freeze for 2011/12 and to protect frontline services.

The authority has confirmed that there will be no increase in its share of the council tax when bills are sent out in March but has also taken steps to protect services which have an impact on public safety.

The budget was approved at a meeting of full council on Friday.

Despite a huge reduction in the grant given to the council by central government, the council will protect front line services whilst taking tough decisions to reduce or stop other services which, while desirable, are not essential.

Among the services which will be wholly or largely protected will be 150 police community support officers. The council will provide a total of £1.5m to Lincolnshire Police Authority to pay for these offices in the next year, helping to combat crime and anti-social behaviour.

The safeguarding of children, fire and rescue, winter road gritting and emergency planning have all fared well as the council chose to protect these services on the grounds of public safety.

However, some other services will be reduced or stopped altogether as the impact of the national deficit is felt locally.

With Lincolnshire losing 28 per cent of grant funding in the next four years, the council had to re-structure how its services are delivered to cope with a shortfall of £125m.

The freeze in the county council’s share of the council tax has been made possible by a Government grant to authorities which agree to keep rises to 2.5 per cent or below.

This comes a few days after East Lindsey District Council stated that they were looking at taking measures that would also protect services and not include a rise in council tax rates. This is good news for local residents as, other than potential increases in Lincolnshire Police, Fire and Rescue and Town Council (or local Parish council for outside of Spilsby itself) parts of the council tax, there is unlikely to be a large scale rise in council tax rates.