City budget approved despite move to block tax hike

Derby City Council has passed its upcoming budget for the year despite a renewed attempt to block a maximum council tax hike for the second year running.

Efforts by the Conservatives to force the minority Labour-led administration to implement a 3.99% rise instead of 4.99% did not get enough support from other opposition councillors to pass.

Under current legislation, 4.99% is the maximum council tax can be raised in Derby without holding a local referendum.

Last year the authority's Labour leaders were forced to abandon plans for a maximum council tax hike.

Most households in Derby sit in council tax band A or B.

The council tax changes will see Band A properties pay roughly an extra £74 for the upcoming financial year.

Band B properties face an increase of around £85 and higher bands will see a rise closer to £100 and over.

budget plans include a net budget requirement of about £393m and cutting costs by around £8m.

CCTV monitoring will be expanded and more community safety officers will be deployed across Derby as part of the city council's budget measures.

No job losses will form part of the plans.

Leaders also say the council is in a position to invest more substantially than in recent years due to Derby having benefited from the government's new funding formula, which prioritises councils with high deprivation levels for funding.

Core spending power has increased by about 9%, or roughly £27m.

The Conservatives dismissed the increase and said it would be "immediately absorbed by inflation, rising demand and statutory obligations".

Speaking at the meeting on Wednesday evening, the authority's Labour leader Nadine Peatfield said the budget was "a turning point" for the city.

"This is a significant moment for Derby. For 15 years councils like Derby were asked to do more with less...not because of local failure, but because of national political choices," she told the meeting.

She added the budget "gives us the platform to move from survival to renewal".

"Council tax...is not an optional extra, it underpins the services people rely on every day," she said.

The Conservatives' main objection to the budget was plans to spend about £3m over the next three years on local government reorganisation, the government's plan to streamline councils across England.

The deputy leader of the Derby Conservatives Jonathan Smale said his group could not support a maximum council tax increase, which he branded a "real and tangible pressure on household budgets".

"For a Band D household this is more than £90 a year extra," he told the meeting.

"The administration presents this as unavoidable - it is not."

The budget includes forecasts for about £115m of potential new spending commitments and pressures that could surface over the next three years.

Funding for children with high needs at school is a particular pressure, which faces a deficit of almost £10m and a cumulative deficit of almost £34m by the end of the financial year.

The pressure is driven by rising demand for Education, Health and Care Plans and increasing placements in specialist provision.

The government has committed to paying up to 90% of special educational needs deficits in councils across England but the details have yet to be fully confirmed.

A Conservative proposal to allocate £150,000 of an existing fund to support a consultation on potential new housing sites in the city centre was passed by the council.

The plans were also tweaked by the Liberal Democrats to include developing a business case for the installation of a turbine on the River Derwent at the council's southern boundary to help supply the council's energy needs.

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