City of Culture council wants 15% tax rise

A cash-strapped local authority is proposing to increase council tax by up to almost 15% from April.

Bradford Council, which kicked off its year as UK City of Culture on Friday, said more "difficult decisions" needed to be made despite large cuts and a £220m injection of funds from a government borrowing scheme.

Leader of the Labour-run authority Susan Hinchcliffe said the council had written to government to ask for a one-off increase of between 9.99% and 14.99% - way above the 5% which would normally trigger a local referendum.

Hinchcliffe said: "We realise that no-one wants to see an increase in council tax when other bills are also rising."

The authority said it had already reduced spending by £48m in 2024/25 with a further £40m of savings needed next year and £50m in each of the following four years.

A spokesperson for the council said their current tax rate was £145 below the national average for metropolitan district councils and was the lowest in West Yorkshire.

They said more than 40% of properties in the district were in the lowest charge group of Band A, the biggest group.

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Their calculations said that if the levy went up by the 9.99% figure it would mean an annual increase of £113.34 or £2.17 extra a week.

If it were to be increased by 14.99%, it would surge by £170.07 annually - about £3.27 extra each week.

Reacting to the news, Conservative Keighley and Ilkley MP Robbie Moore said people in the area would be "brought to breaking point by these tax increases".

"We already know that residents across Keighley and Ilkley pay a significant proportion of Bradford Council's annual tax collection, whilst 75% of the council's unpaid council tax debt comes from Bradford city centre.

"Yet once again, it will be us picking up the tab for the council's financial mismanagement."

The announcement of the council's request came hours before it was revealed that inflation in the UK had dipped to 2.5%.

In 2023, a Freedom of Information request revealed that the authority had set aside about £10m of funding for its stint as UK City of Culture.

The year-long celebration began last week with shows on Friday and Saturday in the city centre drawing crowds of about 10,000 each evening to see music, poetry and special performances by magician Steven Frayne, formerly known as Dynamo.

The authority has also spent £50m on a flagship new music venue, Bradford Live, doubling the initial cost which was expected to be £25m.

It has yet to open to the public after the operator and the council announced they had ended their partnership late last year.

The authority's financial problems are long-running but have also been worsened by a multimillion-pound overspend by its troubled children's services, which were taken over by an independent trust in 2023.

Launched in April 2023, Bradford Children and Families Trust (BCFT), spent £42.3m more than its £174.0m net revenue budget allocation in its first year.

Hinchcliffe said a support fund for those less well off residents would be boosted.

"It's an additional £2 or £3 a week and I know for some that's significant, so we are going to put in place another hardship fund to make sure the poorest in society are supported through this."

"We are still however facing severe pressures on budgets for all our services, from social care to maintaining our parks and green spaces. We will have to continue to make difficult decisions to ensure a stable financial future," she said.

"Looking ahead, we are committed to making the changes and savings needed so we can continue to deliver the services our residents rely on in the future at a reasonable cost," the council leader added.

Some sort of further intervention to solve Bradford's long-running financial woes was to be expected - but the announcement today will still come as a surprise to many.

It's very rare for councils to use the specific rules around upping council tax beyond the standard 4.99% annual maximum rise.

The only reason Bradford is able to do so is because it's already in dire financial straits.

Almost exactly a year ago, bosses here made a special agreement with the-then Conservative government for emergency support, an effective bailout to save them from the edge of bankruptcy.

It meant they can borrow more and sell off huge swathes of land and other assets to try and balance those books.

But it's not small numbers we are dealing with and a turnaround was never coming overnight.

The council has to fill a £40m annual financial black hole over the next few years, but this announcement tells us that even despite years of relentless savings and shaving of essential services, the outlook has not got better.

A few days after the launch of the City of Culture and positive messages about the future, taxpayers will inevitably end up wondering how true that is – and why they always end up paying the price.

Bradford was one of 19 English councils to be granted emergency support from the government last year- £80m for the current financial year and £140m for next year.

Hinchcliffe said they welcomed the additional government funding but said it would not "solve the challenges local government faces overnight".

She said adult and child social care costs accounted for two-thirds of the budget and income from council tax did not "cover the edge" of government funding, which had been cut over the last 14 years.

Hinchcliffe said the vast majority of money to fund City of Culture was from external sources and did not impact on the council's budget for next year.

"We have to have growth and investment in Bradford otherwise we have no future as a place."

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