On the 13th of December, after seeing the local government settlement, Councillor John Cotton and his Labour Administration personally asked for council tax to rise by 9.99% next year, saying they could not balance the budget without such a rise. (See Appendix 17 for a copy of the letter to the government)
In their letter to the government in December, Cllr John Cotton said
Therefore, the Council’s proposal is to increase council tax by 9.99% for the 2025/26 year.
This followed on from last year's letter from Cllr John Cotton to the Government which said:
it is proposed to request the permission for an increase of the current referendum limit from 4.99% to 9.99% in both 2024/25 and 2025/26 financial years (Option 2 above).
Last year, Michael Gove made it clear that this was a decision being made by Birmingham City Council, saying:
“It is disappointing that Birmingham City taxpayers are having to foot the bill for the Council’s poor governance and decision-making. Whilst the Government will not oppose this request given the seriousness of the circumstances, any decision to increase council tax is solely one for Birmingham City Council, who should have taken into account the pressures that people in Birmingham are currently facing on living costs”.
Cllr Robert Alden (Con, Erdington), Leader of the Opposition and Birmingham Local Conservatives, said:
Birmingham Labour are putting up council tax by 7.5% next year, £134 extra for the average household. That means, since getting elected on a promise not to put up council tax labour has put it up 73% since 2012, an increase of £814 for the average household.
Cllr Ewan Mackey (Con, Sutton Roughley), Deputy Leader of the Opposition and Birmingham Local Conservatives said:
The Leader of the Council personally wrote asking for council tax to increase this year by 10% and is now trying to con the residents of Birmingham by claiming he doesn’t want to put it up. The Leader should apologise for attempting to mislead the residents of Birmingham now he’s putting it up by 7.5% and claiming other people wanted to put it up by 10% instead.
Cllr Mackey continued
Residents will wonder what the leader has been smoking to forget that he personally asked for the 10% council tax rise in December?
