The London Borough of Bexley’s Full Council last night (6 March) agreed to set the Borough’s budget for the 2024/25 financial year.

The budget is balanced. The Council will be investing more than £300m in day-to-day services in 2024/25, as well as £266m over four years through the capital programme – including £95m in 2024/25.

In total, the Council will be spending in revenue and capital an average of about £1m per day. This includes:

• £55 million to provide social care for around 5,500 children and young people
• £77 million to support around 7,300 adults through social care
• £62 million of funding provided to BexleyCo for housing development
• £4 million on roads (including more than 3,500 pot holes) and Parks & Open Spaces
• £3 million for equipment for vulnerable older people and people with disabilities
• £2 million for works to emergency temporary accommodation properties and creating additional units at Homeleigh
• £2 million on electric charging points

The Council approved an increase in Council tax and the Adult Social Care precept of 4.99%. This increases Bexley’s Band D Council Tax to £1,683.64.

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 £471.40 – an increase of 8.60%.

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.”

Councillor David Leaf, Deputy Leader of the Council, added:

This is a budget set in challenging economic circumstances affecting councils right across the country. Our budget 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 fulfils our Bexley Plan, it is ambitious for our Borough and it reiterates our commitment to being an efficient and effective council while continuing to make Bexley even better."

This year’s budget is the second 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, a growing and ageing population, increased demands on services, the impact of inflation, and a deferral of the government’s Fair Funding review.

While greater financial certainty was provided by the Government on funding for 2024/25, with a General Election pending there is no certainty on Government funding for local authorities for 2025/26 onwards.

As a result, the Council has made prudent assumptions about income and grants in its projections for the three years from 2025/26 and 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 papers for last night's meeting (available in full online along with the link to a recording of the meeting) set out the final assumptions on which the budget has been planned, including the government’s final Local Government Settlement and comprehensive information on the Council’s financial plans.