Council tax rise confirmed as budget passed at Hackney Town Hall
The town hall has published its gender pay gap report. - Credit: Archant
A council tax rise of 3 per cent was signed off this week as next year’s budget was voted through at the town hall.
Mayor Phil Glanville introduced the financial plan at the council meeting by repeating what he said last week – that bosses were “running out of options” to mitigate devastating funding cuts from central government.
He spoke about the problems facing councils across the country, citing crisis-hit Northamptonshire County Council which in February brought in a section 114 notice banning all expenditure and has now been ordered to postpone its budget vote.
Hackney was the last council to issue a section 114 notice back in 2000, taking it to the “brink of collapse”, and the mayor spoke of the good work done since then to get it to where it is today.
The council tax hike will raise £2.2million by charging people in Band D properties an extra 60p a week.
“Even before reading the comments on the Hackney Gazette website I knew it wouldn’t be popular,” he said.
The Conservatives and Lib Dem opposition both had their amendments dismissed, but not before Springfield’s Cllr Simche Steinberger, the Tory spokesman, had his customary dig at Hackney Today, the council’s illegal propaganda rag.
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Referring to the government’s repeated demands for it to be binned, Cllr Steinberger said: “You can’t be in disagreement with the government for this long. Who’s paying the bills?”
He added that the “one thing” it did have going for it was a sudoku but alleged that one week it didn’t even add up.
