Investing in our communities
Investing in our communities despite financial challenges
This year the council will spend around £650m on a wide range of vital services, including £206m for adult care and community wellbeing, £114m for children’s services and around £25m for the fire service.
Following additional, one-off funding from the government, the authority recently announced a further £7.8m of investment in a number of priority areas, including £3.3m to better prepare and protect communities from flooding.
There’s also £2.5m for additional highways maintenance, £1m for reducing anti-social behaviour and £1m for environment-related work.
The council faces £68m in additional cost pressures from rising prices and increased demand for services, such as adult care, child protection and school transport. This includes around £6m to fund an increase in the national living wage.
The authority has managed to find around £16m in savings. Although the extra one-off funding from the government has helped to balance the budget for 2024/25, the council still faces a projected funding shortfall over the next few years.
The council will continue to push government for long-term solutions to fairer funding, the resetting of business rates and the sustainability of adult care. It will also continue to work towards a devolution deal for Greater Lincolnshire, giving local areas more control over funding.
You can find full details on this year’s budget on the Lincolnshire County Council website
Council tax
The authority’s funding comes from a combination of council tax, business rates and government grants.
In light of increasing costs and demand for services, the council will increase its share of the council tax by 4.99% this year.
The increase is shown on your bill and will generate an extra £18.1m for the council. For a property in council tax band A, the increase would be the equivalent of an extra 96p per week.
Lincolnshire is still expected to have one of the lowest council tax rates of all 26 English shire counties.