We are often asked how residents Council Tax is spent. Below is a breakdown from B&NES website of where your council tax money is allocated and shows how much out of each £1 you pay is divided across the authority departments
Adult Social Care - 46.6p
In the past year Adult Social Care facilitated care and support for 2,460 individuals and enabled 780 people to stay safe in the community. 660 people were supported to return home after a stay in a hospital. We supported 1550 people to live independently in their own homes and access a personal budget to give them choice over how their care is provided. 300 people managed their care through a direct payment. In addition, we supported 1000 people who care for a relative or a loved one.
We also directly run three residential care homes, five extra care housing schemes, and provide home improvement services such as aids and adaptations.
Children's Services - 30.4p
We ensure school places for around 25,000 pupils in 81 schools and academies locally, and fund home to school transport and support services for schools. We assess, fund, and commission a range of services to meet the needs of children and young people with SEND (special educational needs and disabilities). We also fund and provide children’s centre services and the full range of social care services (assessment, planning and intervention) for more than 1,000 of our most vulnerable young people and care leavers. We commission support services across the third and voluntary sector to support us in meeting the needs of our most vulnerable children, young people, and families. We’ve developed the care leaver exemption and foster carer discount.
Refuse Collection and Disposal - 13p
We provide comprehensive weekly kerbside recycling collections, collecting a wide range of recyclable materials from households including:
- food
- glass
- paper and cardboard
- plastics
- small electricals
We collect rubbish every other week from the majority of households and provide a fortnightly collection of garden waste (for a charge). We operate three recycling centres and 268 communal mini recycling centres for flats. We also provide a trade waste collection, recycling, and disposal service. In 2022 to 23 we sent for re-use, recycling, or composting almost 57% of all the household waste we dealt with.
Housing and Public Protection - 5.6p
Each year our Housing team assists around 2,500 households and allocates approximately 550 social housing lettings. Over the past year we have helped 531 households to avoid homelessness and improved 510 properties. We have also delivered 2,330 affordable homes since 2011. Our Public Protection teams play a vital role in encouraging economic prosperity and community wellbeing by the provision of advice, education, and enforcement of appropriate environmental and consumer legislation.
Highways, Transport, Planning and Economic Development - 7.3p
We are responsible for more than 1,102 kilometres of highway and ensuring our network keeps moving. We develop, maintain, and improve highway infrastructure, deliver sustainable transport solutions, improve safety and manage public rights of way for all forms of transport. Each year we resurface miles of carriageway, ensure gullies are debris free, grit key routes across the district in the winter months and maintain traffic signals and streetlights.
We also manage and enforce more 5,863 parking spaces and three Park & Ride sites as well as the first Clean Air Zone outside of London. We provide safe transport for over 2,500 school children and work with our partners in the West of England Combined Authority (WECA) to fund non-commercial bus services, community transport schemes, and shared-taxi schemes.
We deal with around 1,100 building regulations applications and 2,600 planning and listed building applications each year. We develop planning policy framework for the district and make sure we protect what is most valuable to us. We promote the district as a great location for investment, encouraging regeneration and growth. We provide services to help people start and grow their business successfully and support residents to gain skills and progress their careers.
Other Expenditure - -2.9p
The balance of -2.9p includes significant income relating to our Commercial Estate and Heritage Services, together with funding for services including:
- libraries
- cemeteries
- recreation
- tourism
- cleansing
- funding capital projects and charges
