Council tax increase to fund GM Fire & Rescue Service

All Greater Manchester households will pay more towards the fire service from their council tax bills from April.

The mayoral general precept element of council tax will rise to avoid an ‘adverse impact on frontline fire cover’ and buy a new fire engine.

The mayoral general precept will rise to £112.95 per year for a band D property. However, 84 percent of households in the Rochdale borough will pay a smaller increase as they fall into a lower council tax bracket.

The annual increase for the mayoral general precept will range from £3.34 to £10 depending on which council tax band each property falls into. 

From April, the total annual cost of this element of council tax will be:

• Band A: £54.14 (up by £3.34)
• Band B: £63.16 (up by £3.89)
• Band C: £72.18 (up by £4.45)
• Band D: £81.20 (up by £5.00)
• Band E: £99.25 (up by £6.12)
• Band F: £117.29 (up by £7.23)
• Band G: £135.34 (up by £8.34)
• Band H: £162.40 (up by £10.00)

 

 

Over 50% of homes in the Rochdale borough are Band A properties who will pay £3.34 extra a year, or six pence more a week. All of the rise will go to the Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service (GMFRS), with ‘other Mayoral general functions’ seeing no increase.

 

Council Tax breakdown

Council tax is made up of four elements. The majority is made up of the general element, set by the local authority. The remaining elements are the ring-fenced adult social care element, which is also set by the local authority, the policing precept and the mayoral general precept. The latter two are both set by the Greater Manchester Combined Authority.

The mayoral general precept partly funds the fire service and other Greater Manchester-level purposes like rough sleeping support and free bus passes for young people, whilst the policing precept is the amount you contribute to local policing.

 

The rise will be used to cover ‘significant increase in inflationary pressures on both pay and non-pay budgets’, according to a report to the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA). There are also plans to buy ‘an additional fire engine for Greater Manchester and further investment in protection and prevention work’, the report adds. The purchase, combined with a Fire Cover Review from last year, would take the number of fire engines in the city-region from 50 to 52.

That will now be the ‘base position’ for fire cover in Greater Manchester, according to Mayor Andy Burnham, speaking at a GMCA overview meeting. He added: “With this proposal, we are in a strong position to deal with the needs of a growing city-region, hence… the £5 increase to pay for that increase in the number of pumps so that [on] the issues we brought through in Stockport and Trafford reassurance can be provided we won’t need to return to those proposals.”

Mr Burnham was referring to widespread opposition to close Offerton and Sale fire stations from 6pm to 8:30am, with crews on call instead. That would have been done to reallocate resources to the city centre in an effort to improve response times.

Ethan Davies, Local Democracy Reporter