ONE of the odd things about local councils is that we are the only part of government that sends each household a tax demand at the start of the financial year.

I wonder how we would feel if those of us in work also received our income tax demand for the next 12 months. That means bills are landing on doorsteps now.

The good news is that for the fourth year running we have frozen your Council Tax. Some councillors are happy to claim that they also voted for this freeze, but at the same time, they voted against the budget measures that made this possible. Of course, if we had not balanced the budget in the first place, the Council Tax would have risen.

Along with your bill, you will find a leaflet showing in outline how we spend £142m of your money. It is worth bearing in mind that this works out at about £16,000 an hour. For every £100 Council Tax income, we spend £52 looking after the elderly, those with learning difficulties, and vulnerable children. Some of you will notice that this has increased from last year, simply due to the demographic pressure we face in those groups. Last year the same services cost £46 of every £100 Council Tax.

We are also spending a little more by investing in major projects. These include providing for new schools in the town centre and north Swindon as well as road repairs. Swindon cannot do without these investments, and no councillors proposed any amendment to reduce the number of schemes at last month’s council budget-setting meeting.

Not all our costs are rising. We have kept the cost of running the council, and providing accountable councillors who make decisions in public, at £7 per £100. We have reduced the amount we spend on collecting and getting rid of rubbish from £9 last year to £7 per £100 this year. We are able to do this because we invested £8m in a new refuse derived fuel plant, which is one of the major projects I referred to above. We have also adopted a fortnightly kerbside collection of recyclable material and returned to a subscription service for collecting domestic green waste.

While we have adopted our budget, the hard work does not end. I know only the diligence and effort of council officers and contractors means that we can actually deliver all these services within the stringent financial limits.

Above all, though, this year’s budget saves £14m, we know that next year we will need to save a further £18m, most of which comes from facing higher demand. There are no easy answers but this administration will continue to examine all options.