REFORM UK leaders at Staffordshire County Council say a proposed 3.99% tax hike shows their commitment to keeping charges “as low as possible”.
The planned council tax increase for 2026-27 is below the 4.99% maximum which authorities can impose without a referendum.
In recent years, Staffordshire and most other councils in England have gone right up to the limit.
The 3.99% increase will see Band D households in Staffordshire pay £1,686.42 to the county council next year, an increase of £64.71.
Reform UK took control of the county council after May’s local elections and promised to make efficiency savings and keep council tax low to give residents better value for money.
Cllr Chris Large, cabinet member for finance and resources, says that the party’s first budget demonstrates that it is starting to achieve these aims.
But Conservative opposition councillors claim that Reform voters will feel “betrayed” at the planned tax hike, and say Reform’s election claims that the council had large amounts of wasteful spending were false.
The budget does include £21.5million of savings, with the majority of these coming within care commissioning.
The council is also planning to invest an extra £5.5million in children and family services, which will fund 119 new staff, with the aim of improving early intervention.
Cllr Large said:
“We’ve only been in seven months and I’ve worked hard with the officers to pin down costs, to review and really play hard ball on contract negotiations, so that we could bring in as low a council tax increase as possible.
“I would have loved to have come in at 2.99%, but we’ve got to maintain all of the services we want to do, and we also got to grow our service offering.
“The Government were really pushing us hard to go with 4.99%, but if we can come in with 3.99% or 2.99%, that’s my goal.
“At the end of the day, as council taxpayer in Staffordshire I want to get value for money. If you ask most council taxpayers, they don’t believe they do, so I’ve got to turn that around. A 1% difference isn’t a huge amount, but it shows commitment to reducing it.
“In children and families we’re investing £5.5million, which means we’re taking on 120 more people. If we hadn’t put in that £5.5million we could have taken another 1% off council tax, but it’s so important that we start doing early intervention.
“The faster we get into dealing with them, the more will be able to stay at home, which has a knock-on effect on costs.”
The biggest savings proposal will see £8.9million shaved off the care commissioning budget through actions such as reviewing care packages, block booking care home beds and ensuring future fee uplifts are “fair and affordable”.
Smaller savings proposals include reducing the council’s spending on grit bins by £30,000 – at a time when Staffordshire is blanketed in snow – and a £47,000 saving on school crossing patrols.
Cllr Large defended the decision to propose relatively small savings and insisted the school crossing proposal would not affect frontline staff.
He said:
“This demonstrates how much detail we’ve gone into, because every penny counts – £30,000 is taxpayers’ money.
“We’ve done the research and we know that many of the grit bins remain full. Some we’ve applied some intelligence to it, rather than just spending money in a random fashion.”
The council is planning to borrow an extra £15million to spend on repairing potholes – repaying this amount will cost £700,000 a year.
Cllr Large insisted that this investment would go directly to improving Staffordshire’s roads, saying that highways would be subject to one of nine strategic reviews in 2026 with the aim of improving efficiency.
Other areas of spending set to be review included legal services, libraries and Trading Standards – and Cllr Large said there would be “no sacred cows”.
Cllr Philip White, leader of the opposition Conservative group, says that Reform UK have simply “rolled over” most of the budget plans they inherited from the previous Tory administration.
But he believes the decision to keep the council tax increase to 3.99% will create financial problems in future years.
Cllr White said:
“The many people who voted Reform in May expecting to see their council tax cut will feel betrayed by this near 4% rise.
“Reform said they would find huge savings by eliminating the wasteful spending they claimed existed at Staffordshire County Council, but they have found no waste and this budget is largely a roll-over of the previous plans set by the Conservatives.
“The budget changes that have been made include reductions to funding for grit bins, road drainage, school crossing patrols and community safety, but an increase in spending to pay for Reform’s political assistant.
“More worryingly, what was previously a three-year balanced budget is now only balanced for this year, which creates real risks for council services in future years.”
The county council’s budget is due to be signed off at a full council meeting in February.
So the election leaflets which promised a reduction were nonsense… Who’d have guessed?
So why is my council tax bill for a band D property in 2025 £2280? Is it because we have to add on the contribution to Lichfield District Council? If so, this article is misleading.
Reform promised to save millions of pounds of waste in Staffordshire but instead increases council tax by an extra £64.71!
This must be a mistake. Surely tax cuts will be raining down from all those Brexit benefits.
Reform don’t want to talk about Brexit because they know it has failed.
I want to talk about it because I know it has failed.
@Jolly Roger – your council tax bill is made up of a range of elements (parish, district, county councils, police and fire). It’s not misleading, it’s highlighting the county council’s share of the bill. Other authorities will make their decisions in due course.