Canal27ways

Category: Trafford Council

  • How are other councils doing?

    How are other councils doing?

    What have we done to deserve this?

    The Government’s settlement for local government has left some councils in a desperate situation, whilst others are busily working out how they’re going to spend the extra money.

    I don’t have to be polite. This is a ridiculous way to proceed. You’re not going to get value for money at either extreme.

    Nevertheless, we’re in the spotlight. Are we going to get a visit from the Government inspector? The Bishop of Bath and Wells?Are we on our own?

    It’s bleak for us.

    So, what about the councils around us?

    Manchester

    Core Spending Power increases from £786m to £874m, an 11.2% increase. This core spending power equates to £1438 per person.

    The budget papers go to scrutiny on Monday 23rd February.

    They’re very pleased!

    This is a positive settlement for Manchester, by 2028/29 the Council’s overall CSP is forecast to be around 32% higher in cash terms and 24.2% higher in real terms then 2025/26. After accounting for projected population growth this translates to an average 22.9% real terms increase in funding per resident.

    Salford

    Core Spending Power increases from £399m to £424m, a 6.3% increase. This core spending equates to £1431 per person, not a great deal less than Manchester’s.

    The budget goes to cabinet tomorrow 17th February. They’re very pleased!

    This settlement marks a fundamental shift in local government funding, with significant redistribution,
    new formulas, and a move towards consolidated grants. This settlement will result in the most significant redistribution of funding within the sector in the last 25 years.

    Warrington

    Continuing anti-clockwise around Trafford’s border we come to Warrington. Like Trafford, Warrington has been allowed to increase its council tax by 7.99%.

    Core spending increases from £237m to £242m, a 4.5% increase. This figure is calculated before the extra 2.5% council tax is applied, but it’s noteworthy that the increase in core spending is already less than the increase in council tax. This core spending equates to £1109 per person, substantially down on Manchester and Salford.

    Their budget plan goes to scrutiny tonight (16th February). There’s an open acknowledgement they’re in serious difficulty. Their 3 year budget gap has increased from £90m to £130m since December.

    It’s fair to say they’re in a perilous position as their cabinet member for finance explains in the accompanying press release.

    This is almost a confessional to a person holding a hot poker.

    The reports published today detail that our difficulties stem from inadequate budget control, an over-ambitious commercial approach, and several years of unaudited accounts.

    We are victim to national issues, such as rising demands and costs for some services, particularly services that support our young people, families and older adults.

    But specific local issues have also played a significant role in driving our budget issues.

    In recent years, instead of making difficult service cuts when many other councils did, we have relied heavily on income generated from our commercial activity. And, while our commercial portfolio has provided a surplus of around £166 million since 2009, all of this money has been used towards covering successive budget gaps.

    Cllr Denis Matthews, Cabinet Member for Finance, Warrington Council

    Cheshire East

    Continuing our trip around the councils that border Trafford, we come to Cheshire East. Their town hall is based in Macclesfield, but the local authority area comes right up to the outskirts of Altrincham. Cheshire East is in the unenviable position of having a request to increase its council tax refused by government. They wanted a 9% increase but have not been granted any dispensation beyond the standard 4.99%. Politically, they’re facing a vote of no confidence.

    Core Spending Power increases from £430m to £452m, a 5.2% increase. This core spending power equates to £1062 per person.

    Cheshire East are recognising that even with Government support via EFS this is a difficult position.

    The section 151 officer issued the following statement of assurance on the authority’s financial position:

    Assurance Statement of the Chief Financial Officer

    1. The risks in the 2026/27 budget are predominantly in relation to costs associated with demand in Adult and Children Social Care, the delivery of the Improvement and Transformation programme and the Council’s position on the DSG deficit.
    2. Moreover, the inadequate level of general reserves will require the Council to continue to rely on the provision of EFS in order to balance the budget for 2026/27 and future years.
    3. This is not a financially sustainable position and the financial challenges for the Council remain acutely difficult. It is only with the support of EFS that the
      Council can set a balanced budget and this is not a sustainable position.

    Trafford

    Core Spending Power increases from £247m to £251m, an exceptionally paltry 1.9% increase. This core spending power equates to £1041 per person which is the lowest of all these councils.

    The draft budget is due to be published tonight. Of the four councils that border Trafford, two are in a parlous position and two are in clover.

    Trafford has by far the lowest financial spend of the five councils, yet it collects the most per person when you add in business rate collection.

    Some of the negative comments I’ve seen on social media about the financial challenge are a disgrace and there’s a significant political opportunism from people that should know better.

    Trafford’s predicament is not one of a spendthrift council. One might argue that council tax was so low that it prevented sufficient flexibility in the reserves.

    The graph below shows how Trafford has always lagged its neighbours in terms of council tax. Note the uppermost plot is the England average. All these local rates are lower than the average.

    AI generated image by the author using Gemini

  • Setting Trafford’s Budget Pt 7

    Setting Trafford’s Budget Pt 7

    My previous post on setting the budget ended with the words,

    Over to the Government

    All options are possible: worse, same or getting better.

    Fingers crossed.

    This was the week we found out.

    Monday – I hate Mondays

    The final settlement for most local authorities was published.

    The key figure is the 1.9% increase in core spending power. This is based on Council Tax increasing by 4.99%. Yet local budget pressures are increasing by 18.81%. There’s a considerable gap.

    The Govt recognised that the ceiling of 4.99% on council tax increases would place Trafford in an extremely difficult position and has consequently granted the facility to make an additional increase of 2.5%.

    It’s at this point that the proverbial hit the fan. The fact that Trafford is one of a small number councils requiring this facility has shocked residents. Social Media has been on fire. It’s not been pleasant.

    It’s hard to disagree with lots of these comments. The council tax increase is not going to result in notable improvements to service. The truth is that we’ve been hit by changes to the formula used by government to determine the distribution of centrally held funds.

    Areas with high levels of deprivation have benefited from both increases to core funding and a recovery grant that’s given a substantial pick-me-up to most of our neighbouring councils. Only Stockport along with ourselves have missed out. Stockport has a much, much higher council tax with which to absorb this discrepancy. Trafford’s low council tax has kept us lean, but it’s left us incredibly exposed in facing this perfect storm.

    We’re going to have borrow

    This really worries me. We were given facility to borrow £9.6m to support this year’s budget, and it looks like we’ll be utilising most of it. We’re awaiting news of what the government proposes the facility will be for next year, but it could be more than last year.

    I’m standing down in May and I hate the idea that I’m passing debt onto my successors because we didn’t have enough to pay for day to day spending. We’ve surely got to do as much as we can to limit this borrowing.

    If we were able to set our council tax to the average level, we’d be able to avoid borrowing, but that would require an increase of about 17%. Despite it being the normal rate elsewhere, Trafford residents would not weather an extra 17% increase.

    So where does that leave us?

    Councillors will have to take the hit what is really an unsatisfactory compromise – unwelcome increases in council tax, a level of service that doesn’t meet expectations and increased risk of much worse as the debts begin to accumulate.

  • Getting tetchy!

    Getting tetchy!

    I read a really good piece in the Manchester Evening News by Hannah Richardson. It captured perfectly the mood of Trafford Council.

    The Conservatives blamed Labour, Labour blamed the Conservatives, and the Greens pointed the finger at every other party present.

    Hannah Richardson MEN
    Manchester Evening News

    We’re still waiting for the Government’s decision. It normally lands by the end of January, so everyone’s feeling a bit on edge.

    Somerset Council has already had to postpone their budget meetings in the absence of the final settlement.

    One can imagine that the team led by Nico Heslop (Director of Finance) at MHCLG has had its work cut out in listening to the protestations of councils like Trafford over the proposed settlement.

    My guess is that we will learn our fate this week. It will be good to channel all this nervous energy into constructive activity.

    The Conservatives as main opposition party will want to put an alternative budget forward. The other parties might want to propose tweaks. They clearly need to see the Labour budget first.

    If the law dictates that it all has to be done and dusted by March 11, we really need that final settlement agreed.

    Link to Manchester Evening News Article on the Council Meeting of 28 January 2026

  • Setting Trafford’s Budget Pt 5 – Spending

    Setting Trafford’s Budget Pt 5 – Spending

    Essentially, spending is the very core of the budget process. We’re describing how much the council intends to spend and setting out to raise sufficient income to pay for it.

    Councils know there are limits to how much income they can generate, both in terms of the rules and in terms of democratic oversight.

    If Council Tax is too high, the voters will vote for a party that pledges to tax a more reasonable amount.

    Voters also expect to see the benefits of the taxes that the council is taking. They want clean streets, the bins emptying, roads maintained. But it’s not just the state of the place, they don’t want to learn that their elderly neighbour has starved because no one was caring for her. Voters get this, although I don’t think we make it easy for people to see where their money is going.

    So anyway, the council sets out its projected spend by service*. We’re only going to need look at two tables:

    • A chart comparing spend by service in the current year with that projected for the coming year in the draft budget
    • Page 84 of the Draft Budget which is titled ‘subjective budget analysis’, but is actually a single table detailing all the changes to spend and why they’re happening.

    *brief descriptions of each service stream are at the bottom of this post.

    The first chart

    With the publication of the draft budget, we can compare the budget for the coming year to what we’re looking like spending in the current year.

    It’s not possible to provide a completely ‘like for like’ comparison. This is where that 2nd chart referred to above is particularly useful. We can see changes to and between funding streams. So, on that chart, there is an unassuming line ‘Grants, Legislative and Service Transfers’, that accounts for £29m of the increased budget costs.

    The explanation is that the government have moved away from many individual grants and rolled them up into being part of the main allocation. This means the cost needs to be brought into the budget

    This has particularly affected Adults and Wellbeing as it’s added £26m to the budget with the other £3m being attributed to ‘Council Wide’ provision. Given the main allocation which is referred to here as ‘business rate’ funding is only increasing by £23m, there’s a shortfall in the funding from government. That’s one aspect that’s made this a particularly difficult budget.

    Nevertheless, in terms of scrutinising the spending plans, it would seem fair to test some of the assumptions.

    Possible Questions for the Executive at Scrutiny

    • That Children’s Services budget looks ambitious. It’s normal that controlling the cost of children’s services that gives the council the most difficulty. What assurance can we have that a 3.77% can be constrained?
    • Legal and Governance seems to be getting quite a large increase of 10.18%. The bulk of this increase is just described as ‘other’. Can you provide more details?
    • Place is receiving a large increase of 11%. Are we expecting to see improvements to delivery? It’s primarily attributed to the Strategic Investment Programme. What will be the visible returns on this investment?
    • The Adult Services budget is seeing major changes with a move away from grants. We’re allocating that loss of grants (£26m) to the main budget. Given we’re not being compensated in business rates to the same level, would we not be justified in reducing the provision to a level commensurate with that now provided? What would be the effect?
      In any event how are we going to monitor this provision in the absence of grant funding for which monitoring would be standard.
    • I think we’ve also got to monitor head counts. We’ve invested quite a lot over the years in IT and efficiency. We don’t usually receive details of head counts, but I think the very fact we’re having to apply for support means we’ve got be transparent.

    Appendix
    Trafford’s service headings

    As a quick addendum, I just wanted to provide this brief description of service headings. Do we need quite so many? I’ll leave that for another day.

    Children’s Services

    includes a vast range of support services designed to help children and young people who need extra support.

    Adults and Wellbeing including Public Health

    a vast array of services many of which are statutory under the care act 2014

    Place

    The Place directorate provides all those services linked to buildings and the ‘place’ we live in. From bins to planning.

    Strategy and Resources

    Typically, things that Trafford operates as entities such as libraries and bereavement services.

    Finance and Systems

    IT and financial management activities

    Legal and Governance

    Registrars, Legal

    Council-wide

    Includes Asset Investment, Council Tax Support, Treasury management

  • Setting Trafford’s Budget Pt 4 (Draft Budget Publication)

    Setting Trafford’s Budget Pt 4 (Draft Budget Publication)

    10:05 pm 6th January 2026

    The budget is published and the link is below. The council itself is recognising that the budget outcome is not the one it wanted, that there is a gap between the cost of the services it needs to deliver and the income that the council can raise (and keep).

    I can’t add to the official line linked above. As I see it, the changeover to a new fairer funding model has left Trafford on the wrong side of a line. We’re flagging this up to the Government and seeking a financial accommodation from them.

    Trafford remains a council that collects more money than it is allowed to spend itself. That surplus is only going to get bigger with projects like Therme and the Manchester United district. The idea of bankruptcy is just ludicrous.

    Trafford Draft Budget 2026

    Featured Photo by RDNE Stock project: https://www.pexels.com/photo/marketing-exit-desk-notebook-7414218/

  • Setting Trafford’s Budget Pt 3 (Council Income)

    Setting Trafford’s Budget Pt 3 (Council Income)

    It makes sense to look at Trafford’s income on its own. Trafford’s income is largely a case of what you see is what you get, with just a few areas of choice, notably the Green Bin charge which goes into reserves.

    The Current Budget (25/26)

    The cost of Trafford’s current services being delivered for this year is £233m. This has come from:

    • Business Rates £81m
    • Council Tax £139m
    • Reserves £3m
    • Capitalisation Direction £10m

    It’s worth emphasising that there is absolutely no mention of Government funding. This conceals the enormous impact Government makes on the distribution of collected business rates.

    Trafford collects a lot more than £81m from business rates on its businesses. In 24/25 the amount was £152m. So where’s that >£70m gone?

    Trafford’s Council Tax Leaflet 25/26

    This leaflet was issued prior to a public health settlement that slightly boosted the budget. The figures at the top of this section are correct.

    The Local Government Finance Settlement for 26/27

    Despite the fact Trafford’s funding is entirely locally sourced, the Government (of all persuasions) is never going to allow Trafford free rein. In December each year the government issues the finance settlement.

    For 26/27 England’s average increase in spending will be 5.7%.

    Trafford’s increase will be 1.8%.

    This assumes Trafford will increase its council tax by the 4.99% limit.

    So, the starting point for Trafford’s budget setting is council tax going up by 4.99%, yet Trafford’s core spending will nudge up just 1.8%.

    Only 1.8%! Where’s my council tax going? Where’s the increase going?

    It’s a fair question to ask.

    I suspect that both capitalisation direction (borrowing) and use of reserves were contributing to the current year’s spending power. The trouble is that they were one-offs and we haven’t got them next year. And it has to be stated that they haven’t got us out of a hole and the reserves are finite.

    What about other councils?

    We’re not alone nationally, but within Greater Manchester it almost feels as though we are. Greater Manchester has always been mix of the relatively prosperous alongside some of the poorest. That missing chunk of business rates is retained within Greater Manchester to support less prosperous areas here. That used to be fair.

    My view is that the latest local government settlement is putting strain on the Greater Manchester consensus. Manchester Council is seeing a huge increase from this settlement, yet Trafford is a net contributor.

    Nonetheless, our council tax on domestic properties is still low in comparison to our neighbours. Does it need to go higher again?

    What next?

    The draft budget needs to be published by midnight tonight. There has to be an emphasis on the word ‘draft’. Income is only half the story. We need the draft budget to understand spending pressures or easements.

    Technically, the Local Government Finance Settlement is under consultation. I’m confident Trafford will have been making the strongest representation. There’s been some discussion in political journals that the calculation Government is making is favouring London by weighting the cost of housing. Instinctively, that feels like double counting since housing costs have to contribute to deprivation which is the major weighting within the settlement.

    However, for Government to make changes to the formula would change everyone’s settlement. They’re not going to change the formula.

    I think we do need to look at the Greater Manchester formula.

    With regard to last year’s exceptional permission to borrow, I don’t think we ought to accept a regurgitation of that permission to borrow yet more money if that turns out to be government’s solution. That way is one-way and it ends in tears.

    I want to understand business rate growth and that’s’ something I’m keen to see in the report. Trafford has benefited from growing its business rate base. That’s being reset by government but looking at the Old Trafford area, there is still potential to grow it still and that’s an aspect to give some optimism.

    Finally,

    The selfish reason for writing this that the writing is helping me understand the budget. I don’t want to rely on officers. I’ve had to go to core material. Hopefully, I’m able to share some of that knowledge and test it,