Cambridgeshire households to pay about £5 a year more to the fire service
Households in Cambridgeshire will be paying around £5 more towards the fire service this year.
The Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Fire Authority has agreed to increase its share of council tax by 6.6 per cent, which means £4.95 for a Band D property, for the next financial year.
A report presented to the fire authority meeting on Friday (February 10), said council tax precepts made up nearly two thirds of the fire service’s funding.
Households will pay the following amount to the service, based on their tax bands:
- Band A £53.28
- Band B £62.16
- Band C £71.04
- Band D £79.92
- Band E £97.68
- Band F £115.44
- Band G £133.20
- Band H £159.84
The meeting heard that the fire authority had budgeted for a five per cent pay increase for firefighters, but it has just been announced that a new national offer of seven per cent had been made to the Fire Brigades Union.
The union is due to ballot its members on the new offer and has not yet been agreed.
Matthew Warren, the deputy chief executive at the fire authority, said the service would pay this increase using “rainy day funds”.
He said: “There is money set aside in our supplies and services, but all of a sudden anything that we were going to use to enhance and improve the service is really going to be taken up on paying the pay award.
“That in the short term is not an issue because clearly we would hopefully look to catch up again in future years, but it does represent a problem if we do need to invest in the service because we will need to go back to the financial business continuity plan.”
Chris Strickland, the chief fire officer, highlighted that the service was serving a “significantly growing” population in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, and that the “contingency fund” had been planned to be used to invest to support that growth.
He said: “We are serving an increasingly large population but we are having to use any excess cash that we get to effectively maintain services.
“There is no doubt moving forward if we want to do things to improve the service we will have to think about where we take resources so that we can put them in other places, which is not an ideal place to be.
“We will certainly open up some conversations with the Home Office and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities over the early part of this year about our settlement for next year, and whether there is a possibility to look at the precept ceiling for next year.”
The government allowed fire authorities to raise their tax by a maximum of 2.99 per cent or £5 for a Band D equivalent - whichever is higher.
The revenue support grant from the government has also been increased in line with inflation, meaning £294,000 (10.1 per cent) more for Cambridgeshire’s fire service than in 2022-23, and there is further income from business rates and specific grants.
Prior to confirmation of the funding arrangements, Mr Strickland had warned it may be necessary to close “at least three on-call fire stations”, but that appears to have been staved off for now.
The service’s total budget for 2023-24 is £37.129million, compared with £34.752m for 2022-23, and it has found short-term savings of £211,000, including the loss of the equivalent of nine full-time staff - two operational and seven professional support staff. Other savings have been found in travel, printing and stationery and telecommunications, but fuel, heating and lighting and goods and services have all increased.
