Proposed Council Tax Rates Across Berkshire For 2010/11 Released

The proposed Council budgets for Berkshires 6 unitary authorities have all been released, so it is worth bringing the headline facts together to offer a chance to compare and contrast them.

Here are the changes to Band D rates by authority (and those from last year):

Bracknell Forest: +2.9% (+4.9%)
Reading: +2.2% (+3.99%)
Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead: -4.0% (+2.9%)
Slough: +2.5% (+4.9%)
West Berkshire: +1.9% (+3.9%)
Wokingham: +1.9% (+4.68%)


Oranjepan asks:
Notably the proposed changes are much lower across the board than 12 months ago - is this influenced by the national economic outlook, or because we are in a general election year?

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NB. Council Tax pays for a broad and specialised range of services required to be provided by the local authority to the community. These services include:

• Education and Learning - adult and community learning, early years and childcare, schools and non-advanced education.
• Health and Social Care - children and young people's services, care services for the elderly and those with disability.
• Community and Living - community events, libraries and arts and leisure facilities.
• Transport and Streets - traffic calming, street naming and numbering, parking, road maintenance and cycle routes.

Some of the amount collected also pays for Royal Berkshire Fire and Rescue Service, Thames Valley Police Authority and your town or parish council.

The rate of Council Tax anyone pays is based on several factors:

• the property you live in (i.e. its banding based on the historic capital value of property at 1/4/91);
• how many adults occupy the property; and
• the amount of income that the local authority needs to deliver its services once account is taken of grants and other income.

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More on Reading Borough Council's Budget for 2010/11