The Mayor

Mayoral budget 2023/24 approved


 

  • Freeze to Mayoral General Precept (non-Fire)
  • Fire precept increased £3.33 per year
  • More funding for GMP

 

Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham’s 2023/24 budget has been approved. There will be a freeze to the Mayoral General precept and a modest increase to the Fire precept.

The Mayoral General and Fire precept is part of the overall council tax paid by Greater Manchester residents and is used to fund services across the city-region for which the Mayor is responsible.

At the monthly decision-making Greater Manchester Combined Authority meeting, leaders approved the precept proposals. All 10 council leaders are members of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority along with the Mayor and Deputy Mayor.

The decision confirms that the Mayoral General precept will remain the same at £21.16 for a Band A property or £31.75 for a Band D property. The Fire element of the Mayoral precept will see a £3.33 per year increase for a Band A property – over 44 percent of Greater Manchester households are in this Band - taking it to £50.80 per year or a £5 per year increase for a Band D property taking it to £76.20 per year.

Supporting bus passengers

In addition to the £2 bus fare cap, the Mayoral General precept will continue to support reform of bus services as a key step towards the development of The Bee Network - an integrated ‘London-style’ transport system. The Mayoral precept and Earnback grant funding will fund bus franchising in three ‘Tranches’. Tranche 1 will commence operation in September 2023 covering Wigan, Bolton and parts of Salford and Bury, extending to the whole city region in Tranche 3 by January 2025.

Supporting young people

Young people will continue to be supported by the Mayoral General precept during the cost of living crisis by extending the ‘Our Pass’ scheme for a further 12 months from September 2023. This will continue to provide free bus travel within Greater Manchester for 16-18 year olds as well as offer pass holders exclusive access to offers, events, discounts and experiences such as festival tickets to careers tasters, sports and leisure passes, amongst others.

As well as the budget being approved, leaders of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority agreed that, following an evaluation of the Our Pass pilot, it had achieved its strategic objectives and the scheme should be made permanent, subject to annual reviews.

Key findings from the evaluation are:

  • Since Our Pass went live in September 2019, there are c.48,817 active Our Pass cards in circulation out of an eligible cohort population of c.69,000, equating to an uptake of two thirds of eligible young people.
  • Between 80%-90% of young people said Our Pass has had a positive impact on their ease of taking part in education and training; and on how they feel about further education.
  • 91% of young people said Our Pass has increased their levels of personal freedom; 86% said it has helped them take part in new experiences; and 85% said it had helped them to feel like they are a part of Greater Manchester.
  • 29% of all journeys taken using Our Pass are taken outside of school/college hours. This can be assumed as social travel or travel to work, demonstrating young people are using Our Pass for more than just travel to further education. This is also demonstrated by the fact the average usage per pass is 21 times a week.

 

Supporting people who sleep rough

The Mayoral General precept will continue to be used to fund the ‘A Bed Every Night’ emergency response scheme to reduce rough sleeping in Greater Manchester and support local schemes and homelessness partnerships. This scheme is supplemented by financial support from the Greater Manchester Integrated Health and Care Partnership, Probation Service, and other partners across Greater Manchester.

Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service

This increase in the Fire precept is necessary to ensure that the Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service can continue to keep the public safe by ensuring frontline cover is maintained – keeping firefighter numbers higher than those inherited in 2017 when the Mayor took office. It is also needed to support the Service as it continues its journey of improvement, funding important areas of work such as MTA (marauding terrorist attack) training for every firefighter in response to the Manchester Arena Attack, as well as dealing with the record high inflation and energy costs which are impacting on the Service’s estate and fleet.  

Central government has not provided adequate funding to mitigate the significant impact of inflation and energy costs, or firefighter pay to help them through the cost of living crisis. The burden, therefore, falls on local council taxpayer to help maintain the current levels of service in terms of the number of fire stations, fire engines and firefighters.

GMFRS is currently consulting on how it can most effectively and efficiently provide a modern, flexible and resilient service during 2023-24. People who live in, work in, or visit Greater Manchester can help shape the service’s latest annual delivery plan via the ‘GM Consult’ website.

Greater Manchester Police

At a recent meeting of the Greater Manchester Police, Fire and Crime Panel, they agreed to the Mayor of Greater Manchester’s proposal to increase the Police precept for 2023/24 to fund further improvements to policing by £1.25 per month for a Band D property or 83 pence per month for a Band A property.

The precept increase, along with the central government policing grant, will fund:

  • The establishment of dedicated Neighbourhood Crime Teams in each district to more effectively and proactively tackle the issues that residents said are important to them including burglary, robbery, and vehicle crime.
  • The workforce level required to ensure that the significant improvements in 999 and 101 waiting times are maintained and further improved, particularly in respect of 101.
  • Increased capacity and capability of crime scene investigators and digital investigators strengthening opportunities to detect neighbourhood crime and sex offending, including such offences against children.
  • Increased numbers of investigators who conduct initial investigations when a crime is first reported, to ensure more timely and effective investigations into offences that have a big impact on our communities like criminal damage and hate crime.

The current police precept for a Band D property is £228.30 which will increase to £243.30 in the coming financial year and a Band A property will go up from £152.20 to £162.20.

Even with the increase, the Greater Manchester Police precept will remain one of the lowest in the country.

Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham said: “I’m fully aware of the pressure on household budgets caused by the cost of living crisis. Runaway inflation has put pressure on our frontline services too, so I’ve had to balance out trying to keep the precept increase to what we absolutely need to avoid cuts to the frontline in our police and fire and rescue services.

“It’s also important we do what we can to continue to help ease some of the cost of living pressures on our residents which is why I will continue to fund emergency homelessness accommodation, and support for young people and bus passengers through cheaper travel.”

Deputy Mayor for Policing, Crime, Criminal Justice and Fire, Kate Green said: “The Mayor and I have a responsibility to keep our residents safe and that includes ensuring our police and fire and rescue services have the resources they need to do that. We don’t want to add to people’s financial burdens but we won’t be able to provide the services people want without taking this difficult decision.

“For anyone struggling with their bills, there is a lot of information out there including our Helping Hand website and on their local council websites.”

Overall costs, and what it means for my household

The budget passed today means the total amount of the precept - fire and other mayoral functions for 2023/24 will be £71.96 for a Band A property or £107.95 for a Band D property.

Council tax is paid by households and is based on the value of their property. That means that some people pay more, and some pay less than the figures cited, but it’s important to give an average as this gives a sense to residents of what the cost is. Nationally, averages are usually shown based on a Band D property – but in Greater Manchester the vast majority pay less as over 80 percent of properties are in either Bands A, B or C with the majority in Band A (44.7%).

The table below shows the cost to households in each of the bands:

AMOUNTS OF COUNCIL TAX FOR EACH BAND

2023/24

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

Costs by band – Mayoral General incl. Fire (£)

71.96

83.96

95.95

107.95

131.93

155.92

179.91

215.90

Increase per year (£)

3.33

3.89

4.44

5.00

6.11

7.22

8.33

10.00

Costs by band - Police (£)

162.20

189.23

216.26

243.30

297.36

351.43

405.50

486.60

Increase per year (£)

10.00

11.67

13.33

15.00

18.33

21.67

25.00

30.00

Proportion of properties %

44.7%

19.8

17.6

9.5

4.9

2.1

1.3

0.2

 

Article Published: 27/01/2023 16:42 PM