Your Council Tax information 2021-22

How we calculate your Council Tax

Following more than a decade of austerity due to reduced government funding, Redbridge Council has once again been given no option but to increase council tax to make up for the gap in government funding.

This year's financial package received from government assumed that councils will increase council tax and apply a social care precept to make up for the gap in government funding for general services and social care. This year’s council tax increase includes the maximum 1.99% uplift in the 'general' council tax element and a further 3% rise in the ring-fenced adult social care precept.

Overall, the Council Tax for Redbridge in 2021/22 at band D increased by £99.35 which equates to an increase of 5.88% approximately £1.91 per week.

The total Band D Council Tax including the GLA element is £1,789.39 and is made up as follows:

	Redbridge £	GLA £	Total £
Total Council Tax 2020/21	1,357.97	332.07	1,690.04
Increase in Redbridge Council Tax 1.99%	27.02		27.02
Increase in Adult Social Care Precept 3%	40.74		40.74
Greater London Authority Element 5.8%		31.59	31.59
Total Increase in Council Tax 2021/22	67.76	31.59	99.35
Total Council Tax 2021/22	1,425.73	363.66	1,789.39

The Secretary of State made an offer to adult social care authorities. (“Adult social care authorities” are local authorities which have functions under Part 1 of the Care Act 2014, namely county councils in England, district councils for an area in England for which there is no county council, London borough councils, the Common Council of the City of London and the Council of the Isles of Scilly.)

The offer was the option of an adult social care authority being able to charge an additional “precept” on its council tax without holding a referendum, to assist the authority in meeting its expenditure on adult social care from the financial year 2016/17. It was originally made in respect of the financial years up to and including 2019/20. If the Secretary of State chooses to renew this offer in respect of a particular financial year, this is subject to the approval of the House of Commons.

How we spend our budget

Our budget, which includes Government grants and your Council Tax, is used in the following ways:

To help deliver frontline services within the Borough
To fund vital support services to assist in frontline service delivery
to pay for the services we receive from a number of external bodies

Your bill

Visit our Council Tax pages for information on:

How your money is spent

The table below shows how we planned to spend your money in 2020/21, how we plan to spend it in 2021/22 and how much the resulting Council Tax is.

2020/21 £m	How your money is spent	2021/22 £m
330.8	Children's Services	343.0
99.6	Adult Social Care Services	104.8
11.9	Leisure Services	12.1
43.4	Environmental Services & Highways (Civic Pride)	43.9
13.7	Regeneration & Property	15.1
32.3	Housing	48.9
169.2	Customer Care & Benefits including Concessionary Travel	166.7
15.0	Corporate Services	14.8
715.9	Gross Expenditure on General Fund Services	749.3
27.4	Housing Revenue Account (HRA)	28.4
27.5	Capital Financing	23.7
22.0	Unallocated Costs & Contingencies	35.0
1.2	Contribution to General Fund Reserves	1.4
19.1	Levies	13.6
813.1	Total Gross Expenditure including HRA	851.4
(119.4)	Rent, Fees & Charges and Other Income	(140.3)
(565.6)	Grants, Subsidies & Business Rates	(582.2)
(3.7)	Collection Fund Surplus	(0.2)
124.4	Council Tax Requirement	128.7

Changes in Spending	£m
Council Tax Requirement 2020/21	124.4
Spending Changes
Growth for Existing Services and New Initiatives	10.6
Covid 19	7.4
New Savings	(2.3)
Levies	(5.5)
Capital Financing	(4.3)
Inflation / Contingencies	5.1
Funding Changes
Movement in Reserves	0.2
Collection Fund Deficit	3.5
Government Grants / Business Rates	(10.4)
Council Tax Requirement 2021/22	128.7

What else does your council tax pay for

East London Waste Authority (ELWA)

East London Waste Authority has the statutory responsibility for the disposal of household and commercial waste collected by the London Boroughs of Barking & Dagenham, Havering, Newham and Redbridge, and for the provision of Reuse and Recycling Centres in its area.

Waste disposal is carried out under a 25-year Integrated Waste Management Services Contract with Renewi plc (previously Shanks Waste Management Ltd.), supported by funding via the government’s Private Finance Initiative.

Budget 2021/22

ELWA’s total levy requirement is £47.563m (2020/21 £67.488m). Whilst the budget is growing as in previous years due to inflationary increases in operational costs, landfill tax, insurance and provision for increases in the amount of waste as the population grows, a one-off release of reserves has enabled an average decrease in the 2021/22 levy of 29.52%. The decrease for the London Borough of Redbridge is 30.13%.

The major part of the ELWA Levy is apportioned on the basis of relative amounts of household waste delivered to it by each of the four constituent London Boroughs, with the remainder apportioned according to their Council Tax Bases.

The Levy on the London Borough of Redbridge for 2021/22 is £12.822m (2020/21 £18.350m).

London Pensions Fund Authority (LPFA)

The London Pensions Fund Authority (LPFA) raises a levy each year to meet expenditure on premature retirement compensation and outstanding personnel matters for which LPFA is responsible and cannot charge to the pension fund. These payments relate to former employees of Greater London Council (GLC), the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) and the London Residuary Body (LRB).

For 2021/22, the income to be raised by levies is set out below.

The Greater London levy is payable in all boroughs, the Inner London levy only in Inner London Boroughs (including the City of London).

The figures show the total to be raised and, the percentage change on the previous year.

	£m	Change in %
Inner London	£13.065	0%
Greater London	£10.318	0%
Total	£23.383	0%

The Levy on the London Borough of Redbridge for 2021/22 is £0.308m (£0.310m for 2020/21)

Lee Valley Regional Park Authority

Lee Valley Regional Park is a unique leisure, sports and environmental destination for all residents of London, Essex and Hertfordshire. The 26 mile long, 10,000 acre Park, much of it formerly derelict land, is partly funded by a levy on the council tax. This year there has been a 2% increase in this levy. Find out more about hundreds of great days out, world class sports venues and award winning parklands at www.visitleevalley.org.uk

Budget/Levy 2021/22	2021/22 £m
Authority Operating Expenditure	20.9
Authority Operating Income	(12.7)
Net Service Operating Costs	8.2
Financing Costs - Debt servicing/repayments - Capital investment	0.5 0.8
Total Net Expenditure	9.5
Total Levy	(9.8)

The Levy on the London Borough of Redbridge for 2021/22 is £0.217m (£0.214m for 2020/21).

The Environment Agency(EA)

The Environment Agency is a levying body for its Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management Functions under the Flood and Water Management Act 2010 and the Environment Agency (Levies) (England and Wales) Regulations 2011.

The Environment Agency has powers in respect of flood and coastal erosion risk management for 5,200 kilometres of main river and along tidal and sea defences in the area of the Thames Regional Flood and Coastal Committee. Money is spent on the construction of new flood defence schemes, the maintenance of the river system and existing flood defences together with the operation of a flood warning system and management of the risk of coastal erosion. The financial details are:

Thames Regional Flood and Coastal Committee

Total Council Tax Base	5.163m	5.127m
	2020/21 £m	2021/22 £m
Gross expenditure	132.291	133.962
Levies Raised	11.807	12.042

The majority of funding for flood defence comes directly from the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). However, under the new Partnership Funding rule not all schemes will attract full central funding. To provide local funding for local priorities and contributions for partnership funding the Regional Flood and Coastal Committees recommend through the Environment Agency a local levy.

A change in the gross budgeted expenditure between years reflects the programme of works for both capital and revenue needed by the Regional Flood and Coastal Committee to which you contribute. The total Local Levy raised by this committee has increased by 1.99%.

The total Local Levy raised has increased from £11.807m in 2020/21 to £12.042m for 2021/22.

The Levy on the London Borough of Redbridge for 2021/22 is £0.212m (£0.210m for 2020/21).

Greater London Authority (GLA)

Introduction

The Mayor of London’s budget for the 2021-22 financial year sets out his priorities to support London’s recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and to tackle the huge social, health and economic inequalities which it has exposed and exacerbated. It supports job creation and London’s business community, our city’s future growth and economic success and the Mayor’s vision to rebuild London after the pandemic as a greener, cleaner and safer city with stronger and more cohesive communities.

This year’s budget will provide resources to improve the key public services Londoners need. This includes delivering more genuinely affordable homes, securing funding to maintain and expand the capital’s transport infrastructure and tackling toxic air pollution and the climate emergency. The budget also provides resources to support jobs and growth, fund skills and retraining programmes, help rough sleepers, invest in youth services and make London a fairer and cleaner place to live. Moreover, it prioritises resources for the Metropolitan Police and London Fire Brigade to keep Londoners safe, including violence reduction initiatives and ongoing support to improve opportunities for young Londoners. In light of the significant reductions in fares revenue and property tax income due to the pandemic, difficult decisions have been unavoidable. However, this budget remains focused on delivering a swift and sustainable recovery from the pandemic, as well as building the better, brighter, fairer future all Londoners want and deserve.

Council tax for GLA services

The GLA’s share of the council tax for a typical Band D property has been increased by £31.59 (or 61p per week) to £363.66. The additional income from this increase in council tax will fund the Metropolitan Police, the London Fire Brigade, and will also go towards maintaining existing travel concessions for the under 18s and Londoners aged 60 and over. Council taxpayers in the City of London, which has its own police force, will pay £96.53.

Council Tax	2020/21	Change	2021/22
	£m	£m	£m
MOPAC (Metropolitan Police)	252.13	15.00	267.13
LFC (London Fire Brigade)	55.28	1.59	56.87
GLA	22.69	(0.12)	22.57
TfL (Transport)	1.97	15.12	17.09
Total	332.07	31.59	363.66

Controlling costs at City Hall and delivering the Mayor’s key priorities

The Mayor’s budget includes significant savings across the GLA Group in 2021-22. This has allowed him to release resources to help meet his key priorities. This includes plans to invest £4.4 billion to continue delivering 116,000 affordable homes starts within London by 2023 and an additional 35,000 by 2026 as well as allocating resources to tackle homelessness and reduce rough sleeping. He has taken steps to improve air quality in London by introducing the Ultra Low Emission Zone in central London, which will be expanded to the North and South Circular roads in Autumn 2021. He will also continue to fund a Green New Deal for London to address the climate emergency, with the objective of helping to create jobs and to double the size of the capital’s green economy by 2030.

The Mayor will continue to ask the Government to provide the maximum possible ongoing financial support to London businesses and Londoners as the capital emerges from the very severe impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. He will also maintain investment in skills and retraining to help tackle unemployment and support Londoners to secure better paid jobs, as well as continuing to request that the Government strengthen the safety net for the most vulnerable Londoners.

The Mayor will also work with London’s business community, key investors and other stakeholders to support the economic recovery and ensure that London’s interests are protected following the UK’s departure from the European Union. He will provide funding for new projects to bring communities together, tackle social inequality and boost London’s economy, including supporting projects to help small and medium sized businesses.

The Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC)

The Mayor’s Police and Crime Plan – a Safer City for Londoners 2017-21 – sets out his strategy for policing and community safety in the city. His key priorities include improving the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), providing a better criminal justice service in London and keeping children and young people safe. He will also provide resources to tackle domestic violence, which particularly affects women, and continue to invest in violence reduction initiatives.

The Mayor published his Action Plan in November 2020 to improve trust and confidence in the MPS and to address community concerns about disproportionality in the use of certain police powers affecting Black Londoners. The Mayor has committed, as part of the Action Plan, to invest extra resources to develop greater community involvement in police officer training and in the recruitment and progression of Black officers in the MPS.

The MPS must rise to meet these challenges at a time of acute financial pressure. As a result of the reductions in resources from the Home Office for policing over the last decade, which have only recently started to be reversed by the current government, the MPS had to close more than 100 police stations and remove over 3,300 Police Community Support Officers and 4,500 police staff in order to protect front line officer numbers.

The Mayor is raising the police element of his council tax precept by £15 for a typical Band D property, as assumed in Government calculations of police spending power. In all, through his decisions in this and previous budgets, the Mayor has funded an additional 1,300 officer posts from locally raised revenues.

Transport for London (TfL)

TfL has faced significant financial challenges as a result of the reduced levels of ridership due to the pandemic since March 2020, which has led to a large fall in fare revenues. The Mayor continues to work with the Government to secure a sustainable long-term funding settlement for TfL to allow him to continue investment in the transport network while making it more reliable and accessible. The Mayor’s priorities for TfL include:

working with London boroughs to maintain existing concessionary travel and assisted door to door transport schemes. This includes, for example, maintaining free bus and tram travel for under 18s as well as free off-peak travel across the network for Londoners aged 60+, the disabled, armed forces personnel in uniform and eligible armed services veterans and protecting the Taxicard and Dial a Ride schemes;
opening the central London section of the Elizabeth line (the operational name for Crossrail) in the first half of 2022, followed by the full line opening with through services as soon as possible to increase central London’s rail capacity by ten per cent. TfL will also open the Northern line extension to Nine Elms and Battersea Power station in 2021;
rolling out 94 new Piccadilly line trains, with the first new trains serving customers from 2025;
enhancing capacity on the London Underground and rail services, and upgrading key stations such as Bank/Monument station;
making public transport more accessible for everyone. Within the next five years nearly 40% tube stations are expected to be step free. All Elizabeth line stations once the line opens in full will also be step free;

extending the London Overground on the Gospel Oak to Barking Line to serve Barking Riverside (due to open by 2022) and expanding capacity on the DLR network;
maintaining the Bus and Tram one-hour Hopper fare and investing to improve journey times and reliability on the bus network;
continuing the electrification of London Buses so that all are emission free by 2037 at the latest;

extending the Ultra Low Emission Zone in central London to the North and South Circular roads by Autumn 2021 to help tackle London’s toxic air quality; and
investing in a range of schemes designed to make walking, cycling and public transport safer, cleaner and more appealing in partnership with London boroughs.

London Fire Commissioner (LFC)

The Mayor’s funding ensures that the London Fire Brigade’s first and second fire engines attending an emergency incident arrive within 10 minutes on at least 90% of occasions and 12 minutes on at least 95% of occasions respectively, after being dispatched. The Mayor is also providing resources to roll out a transformation programme so that the LFB can implement the recommendations of the Grenfell fire inquiry. This includes investing in the new vehicles and equipment required.

London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC)

The LLDC was set up to ensure that the city benefits from a long-term legacy from the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The Mayor’s 2021-22 budget provides funding to progress the construction of East Bank, one of the world’s largest and most ambitious cultural and education districts, in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. It will bring an additional 1.5 million visitors to the Park and surrounding area each year, and more than 2,500 jobs will be created generating an estimated £1.5 billion for the local economy.

Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation (OPDC)

The OPDC has been established to support the creation of 65,000 new jobs and at least 24,000 new homes in west London over the next 20 years. It will build on the regeneration benefits which High Speed 2 (HS2), the Elizabeth line and the Great Western Mainline stations at Old Oak Common are expected to bring locally.

Summary of GLA Group budget

The tables below show where the GLA’s funding comes from and the reasons for the year on year change in the budget. It also explains how the GLA has calculated the sum to be collected from council tax (the council tax requirement).

How the GLA budget is funded	2021/22 £m
Gross Expenditure	13,804.4
Government grants and retained Business Rates	(8,453.9)
Fares, charges and other income	(5,136.9)
Changes in reserves	883.0
Amount met by Council Tax payers	1,096.6

Changes in spending	2021/22 £m
2020/21 Council Tax requirement	1,010.9
Inflation	176.7
Efficiencies and other savings	(196.3)
New initiatives	383.3
Other changes (for example fares revenue and government grants)	(278.0)
2021/22 Council Tax requirement	1,096.6

Detailed budget by service area

The table below compares the GLA Group’s planned expenditure on policing, fire and other services (including transport) in 2021-22 with 2020-21.

The GLA’s planned gross expenditure is higher this year. This is mainly due to the impact of extra investment planned by the Mayor in transport and policing. Overall the council tax requirement has increased because of the extra funding for the Metropolitan Police, the London Fire Brigade and maintaining existing concessionary free travel for under 18s and Londoners aged 60 and over. There has been a 1.0% decrease in London’s residential property taxbase. Find out more about our budget at: www.london.gov.uk/budget

Summary of Spending and Income (£ million)	Police (MOPAC)		Fire (LFC)		Other Services (incl. GLA, TfL, LLDC and OPDC)		GLA Group Total
(figures may not sum exactly due to rounding)	2020/21	2021/22	2020/21	2021/22	2020/21	2021/22	2020/21	2021/22
Gross expenditure	3,885.3	3,968.2	489.5	489.3	8,991.1	9,346.9	13,365.9	13,804.4
Government grants and business rates	(2,786.3)	(2,793.0)	(266.1)	(266.9)	(2,434.1)	(5,394.0)	(5,486.6)	(8,453.9)
Other income (incl. fares and charges)	(280.0)	(290.1)	(39.8)	(41.2)	(6,467.5)	(4,805.6)	(6,787.3)	(5,136.9)
Net expenditure	819.0	885.2	183.6	181.2	89.5	(852.7)	1,092.0	213.6
Change to level of reserves	(51.9)	(80.3)	(15.0)	(9.4)	(14.2)	972.7	(81.1)	883.00
Council tax requirement (income)	767.1	804.9	168.6	171.8	75.2	119.9	1,010.9	1,096.6

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