You need to pay Council Tax if you live in or own a property.
Your Council Tax is shared between your local District or Borough Council, the Suffolk Constabulary and Suffolk County Council, and used to provide public services.
Who do I pay my Council Tax to?
If you live in Suffolk, you pay Council Tax to your local District or Borough Council.
They are:
- Babergh District Council and Mid Suffolk District Council
- East Suffolk (Suffolk Coastal District Council and Waveney District Council)
- Ipswich Borough Council
- West Suffolk (Forest Heath District Council and St Edmundsbury District Council)
Your local council can help you with things such like housing and council tax exemptions.
- Find who your local council is on GOV.UK if you don't know who they are
- How Suffolk Police and Crime Commissioner spends Council Tax
How Council Tax is calculated
|
2017/2018 Council Tax |
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Overall Suffolk County Council |
£789 | £920.50 | £1052 | £1183.50 | £1446.50 | £1,709.50 | £1972.50 | £2367 |
|
**Increase (%) |
A |
B |
C |
D |
E |
F |
G |
H |
| Base Council Tax | 2.99% | 2.99% | 2.99% | 2.99% | 2.99% | 2.99% | 2.99% | 2.99% |
| Adult Social Care Levy | 2% | 2% | 2% | 2% | 2% | 2% | 2% | 2% |
| Overall Suffolk County Council component of Council Tax |
4.99% | 4.99% | 4.99% | 4.99% | 4.99% | 4.99% | 4.99% | 4.99% |
|
**Increase (£) |
A |
B |
C |
D |
E |
F |
G |
H |
| Base Council Tax | 23.58 | 27.51 | 31.44 | 35.37 | 43.23 | 51.09 | 58.95 | 70.74 |
| Adult Social Care Levy | 15.78 | 18.41 | 21.04 | 23.67 | 28.93 | 34.19 | 39.45 | 47.34 |
| Overall Suffolk County Council component of Council Tax |
39.36 | 45.92 | 52.48 | 59.04 | 72.16 | 85.28 | 98.40 | 118.08 |
|
2018/2019 Council Tax |
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Base Council Tax |
774.60 | 903.70 | 1032.80 | 1161.90 | 1420.10 | 1678.30 | 1936.50 | 2323.80 |
|
Adult Social Care Levy |
53.76 | 62.72 | 71.68 | 80.64 | 98.56 | 116.48 | 134.40 | 161.28 |
|
Overall Suffolk County Council |
£828.36 | £966.42 | £1104.48 | £1242.54 | £1518.66 | £1794.78 | £2070.90 | £2485.08 |
**Legislation requires that the increase is calculated based upon the total Suffolk County Council component of the council tax charged for the previous year.
Message from the Leader of Suffolk County Council
Around this time of year, there’s usually a lot of talk about how much local authorities are planning to put up council tax. I understand that. Money is tight in households across the country, so any changes to people’s monthly outgoings can be a real worry. This is especially the case for people on fixed or low incomes.
Suffolk County Council has tried to do its bit by freezing our share of council tax since 2010. It’s not been easy, but we’ve done it by careful and prudent use of our reserves, by making over £236 million of savings, and finding new ways of delivering essential public services.
Unfortunately, despite continuing to save millions of pounds, we can’t freeze council tax this year. In 2018/19, we’re facing a significant difference between the amount of money it will cost to provide essential services in Suffolk and the amount of money we actually have to spend.
We’ve found ways of closing that budget gap, including making savings and using our reserves, together totalling £26.8 million. But we also need to increase the amount of council tax we ask you to contribute, equivalent to 88p extra per week for the most common type of property in Suffolk - band B. This is so we can protect frontline services and deliver as best we can for the people of Suffolk. A large element of this is going directly to providing care for vulnerable adults. Often, the debate about council tax increases and budget savings leads us to lose sight of the tremendous good that money does for society.
Suffolk County Council spends just under £500 million a year, over 60% of which is used to provide care for elderly people, children in need and education and skills for the next generation. That money also goes on repairing our roads, protecting us from fire and rogue traders and supporting people to live healthier lives. Additional money is invested in delivering major infrastructure projects like improving Suffolk’s access to high speed broadband, building new roads, and creating new river crossings in Lowestoft and Ipswich.
The most recent major investment we’ve agreed is a £21 million programme to resurface and repair 1000 miles of Suffolk roads.
Our priorities for Suffolk include growing our economy in a way that benefits everyone, improving people’s health, care and wellbeing and delivering efficient and effective public services. We have a business plan specifically designed to deliver against these priorities in 2018/19.
I’ll be frank with you. No - there isn’t enough money to do everything we want to do. Local councils are receiving less national funding, so we have to make savings and look to you, our local residents, for support. But I’m very clear that we have to be very careful about how much support we ask for, and we need to listen to what people are saying. We have to strike the right balance.
I know this can be difficult, but my promise is your hard-earned money will be used sensibly to deliver our services to the people of Suffolk in the most cost-effective way.
Colin Noble
Leader of the Council
Where we spend the money
Suffolk County Council's budget for 2018-19 is £498.5 million.
Expenditure varies between financial years because of the impact of funding reductions, increased demand for services and changing responsibilities.
Directorate |
2018-19 |
|---|---|
| Adult and Community Services | £232.1 million |
| Health, Wellbeing and Children’s | £137.7 million |
| Fire and Public Safety | £24.5 million |
| Growth Highway and Infrastructure | £50.3 million |
| Corporate Services | £26.4 million |
| Capital Financing and Central Resources | £27.5 million |
Capital projects
We also plan to spend £99.5 million on capital projects, including:
- continuing to invest in the county’s road network, totalling £39.4 million
- superfast Broadband, totalling £7.2 million
- schools, including additional places, totalling £28.6 million
How we will make savings
Suffolk County Council's grant from government continues to reduce and in order to set a balanced budget for 2018-19 savings of £23.9 million have been identified.
These savings will be delivered across a number of services as the Council continues to make good progress with transformation programmes and identifies ways in which services can be managed in an efficient and effective way.
Read full details of the savings in annex D of Appendix C.
Project |
Directorate |
Savings |
|---|---|---|
|
Commission personalised services and information to reduce service demands and support people within their own homes. The Mental Heath/Learning Disabilities strategy will look at changing how services are planned and commissioned to create a more diverse range of provision and increase personalisation to try to reduce the rate of growth in demand for Learning Disabilities services. Target resources available for care pricing to support sustainable high-quality care. |
Adult and Community Services | £11 million |
| Reduction of sheltered housing grant. This proposal has been shared with providers since 2016 and in the interim, they have been encouraged to make alternative arrangements for the sustainability of these low-level support services. | Adult and Community Services | £1 million |
| Review income generation opportunities and exploit the benefits of the new Care Management System to deliver efficiency savings. Savings from negotiation of a four-year budget deal with Suffolk Libraries. | Health, Wellbeing and Children’s Services | £0.25 million |
| Changes to the delivery of the Trading Standards service and a modest reduction to the level of grants for the Citizens Advice Services. Efficiencies from property collaboration between the Fire & Rescue Service and other blue-light organisations. | Fire and Public Safety | £0.24 million |
| Adjustment to the highways winter maintenance programme and generation of additional income from charges. Savings from the continuation of the Connecting Communities (Community Transport Services) strategy and efficiencies from sponsored bus services contracts.. | Growth, Highways and Infrastructure | £1.34 million |
| Savings from the re-procurement of IT contracts and further efficiencies from the Corporate Property service. | Corporate Services | £0.37 million |
| Re-profiling of Council debt to reduce the amount of money that the Council needs to set aside each year to repay this. Increase in the dividend that the Council receives from the operation of its wholly owned companies. Careful management of the resources available to meet the cost of inflationary increases and further review of opportunities to generate additional income. | Capital Financing and Central Resources | £9.7 million |
Where the money comes from
Suffolk County Council's budget for 2018-19 is £498.5 million.
Expenditure varies between financial years because of the impact of funding reductions, increased demand for services and changing responsibilities.
Category |
2018-19 (£) |
2018-19 (%) |
|---|---|---|
| Council Tax | £290.4 million | 58% |
| Government Grants | £52.2 million | 10% |
| Social Care precept | £19.9 million | 4% |
| Business Rates (including top up grant) | £133.1 million | 27% |
| Use of Reserves | £2.9 million | 1% |