Maidstone Borough Council 3 Council tax facts


How your council tax pounds are spent


Kent County Council – 71p


Maidstone Borough Council is asking residents to pay about an extra 8p a week for its services, such as planning, waste and recycling collections, and street cleaning for the year April 2013 to March 2014. The borough council froze its council tax for each of the last two years but agreed an increase of 1.9% in order to protect services in future financial years. The council decided not to accept a council tax freeze grant because it was equivalent to a 1% increase for two years only. After two years the council would have to make bigger savings when the grant was withdrawn. The increase is within the government’s threshold for council tax increases. As a result the full cost of the borough council’s services for the year will rise by £4.23 a year for a Band D taxpayer to £226.62.


Maidstone Borough Council – 15p


Police and Crime Commissioner for Kent – 9p


Kent and Medway Fire and Rescue – 5p


Out of every council tax pound - 71p goes to Kent County Council, 15p goes to Maidstone Borough Council, 9p to Kent


Council tax bands


The total charge for Kent County Council, Maidstone Borough Council, Police and Crime Commissioner, and Kent and Medway Fire and Rescue Services for every band is:


A £998.21 B £1,154.08 C £1,318.95 D £1,483.82 E £1,813.56 F £2,143.30 G £2,473.03 H £2,967.64


All figures exclude parish council precepts.


Police and Crime Commissioner, and 5p to Kent Fire and Rescue (excluding parish council precepts).


Kent County Council has frozen its council tax and the charge for its services will remain at £1,047.78. The Kent and Medway Fire and Rescue Authority has frozen its council tax and the charge for its services will remain at £67.95. The bill for the Police and Crime Commissioner for Kent will rise by 2% from £138.68 to £141.47 for Band D taxpayers.


That means that the total bill for a band D taxpayer, excluding parish council precepts, will rise by 0.48% from £1,476.80 to £1,483.82.


Parish precepts


Council Tax bills for most rural areas include an additional parish council precept. These range from £23.56 for Boughton Malherbe to £73.02 for Leeds. Maidstone council’s budget includes support for parishes of £110,631 in 2013-14 to compensate them for the loss of income due to council tax benefit changes which will reduce the amount they collect in tax from their residents.


Budget consultation


Consultation on this year’s budget asked people for their views on the cabinet’s proposals for savings, specifically whether the council should provide services directly itself or through voluntary, business and charity organisations, and whether the council should provide profit making commercial services and borrow money to cover the start up costs of them. Residents were asked how they wanted to contact the council. 476 people completed the council’s consultation exercise by telephone, online and at the Maidstone Gateway.


There were good levels of support for the cabinet’s proposals to provide more services through voluntary, business and charitable organisations (53% in favour), and to provide commercial profit making services such as a new commercial waste collection for shops and offices (60% in favour). There was less support for the council’s proposals


to borrow money to cover the start up costs of commercial profit making services (30% in favour) and the cabinet agreed to write to consultees and publish the safeguards the council has put in place for borrowing.


The safeguards which have been agreed by the Cabinet, Audit Committee and the Full Council include:


 All commercial activity will be considered on a scheme by scheme basis by councillors;


 The return on investment must cover the full cost of borrowing;


 Borrowing will be by the most economically advantageous and secure method;


 Borrowing will be in accordance with statutory guidelines for local government.


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