Council Tax budgets and spending

Elected councillors agree a budget each year that shows how much money we will need for the services we will be providing, and where the money will come from. Council Tax has to make up the difference between the amount we receive from other sources and the total it costs us to provide our services. This difference is called the Council Tax requirement.

Council Tax bills also include charges from local town and parish councils (PDF, 170KB), Cheshire Constabulary, and Cheshire Fire Authority. Each of these organisations sets their own budget for the services they provide. Where a Town or Parish Council plans to raise more than £140,000 they must publish details of their gross expenditure.

Council Tax budget summary 2024-25 

For 2024-25, the budgets to be met from Council Tax in the Cheshire East Council area are:

We have increased Council Tax by 4.99% for 2024-25.

The 2024-25 increase is the ninth increase since 2010-11. We froze Council Tax levels for 5 years from 2011-12 to 2015-16, with some central government support. During those 5 years, we saved Council Tax payers a total of nearly £50m and continued to provide services that met the needs of local residents.

There are three reasons for this year's increase:

• there is continuing growing demand for social care
• the costs of providing services have risen due to exception inflation levels
• we continue to have extremely low levels of general revenue support grant (£414,000 allocated for 2024-25)

Business growth is helping to bring in more money from Business Rates, and the growth in house building should mean more Council Tax payers and higher Council Tax income. But it will still be a major challenge to raise the amount of money to cover what's needed.

Changes between the 2023-24 and 2024-25 budgets

We need to raise £17.3 million more from Council Tax including town and parish charges in 2024-25 than we did in 2023-24. This is due to exception inflation and higher demand for key services.

How we spend our income

We split our services into service committee areas. 

Spending by service committee area

Breakdown of income and expenditure by service committee area

Breakdown of income and expenditure by service committee area

Area of spending	2024-25 gross expenditure (amount of money needed) - A	2024-25 service specific income (not from Council Tax or Business Rates) - B	2024-25 net expenditure (amount needed after deducting service-specific income) - C	2023-24 net expenditure (amount spent after deducting service-specific income) - C
	£m	£m	£m	£m
Schools	183.309	-183.309	0.000	0.000
Adults and Health Committee	223.849	-86.407	137.442	136.332
Children and Families Committee	99.583	-10.620	88.963	79.125
Corporate Policy Committee	111.416	-69.760	41.656	40.988
Economy and Growth Committee	36.169	-8.227	27.942	25.044
Environment and Communities Committee	64.930	-16.281	48.649	48.321
Highways and Transport Committee	28.669	-12.839	15.830	11.007
Finance Sub Committee (Central budgets, Reserves and Capital Financing)	18.727	-3.500	15.227	12.308
Total - D	766.652	-390.943	375.709	353.125

Notes

A - The gross expenditure columns shows what we plan to spend in 2024-25

B - Service-specific income includes income from:

• grants that can only be used for the particular service
• fees and charges for services
• other external contributions for the particular service

C - The net expenditure figure is the amount left after deducting the sum in the income column. This is the amount of money we need to cover from general income. General income comes from Council Tax, Business Rates and government grants.

D - The totals line shows that after taking into account income we receive for specific spending areas, we still need to raise £375.7 million to cover the costs of services. This money has to come from general income - Council Tax, Business Rates and central government grants.

Service commissioning

Some of our services are provided through contracts with other organisations rather than directly by Cheshire East Council staff. This is called commissioning. We then pay the other organisation to provide the relevant services. This money comes out of the relevant service portfolio budget.

We have created our own companies to provide some types of services. We've done this because companies can access funds and sources of income that we as a council can't. A share of the profits from these companies comes back to us to help fund services. For more information about these companies, see Best Fit services. 

Sources of general income

Sources of general income

Source of income	Amount 2024-25	Amount 2023-24
	£m	£m
Business Rates retained	56.627	55.277
Revenue support grant (central government)	0.414	0.388
Specific grant (central government)	31.582	26.363
Cheshire East Borough Council Tax	287.086	271.097
Total general income	375.709	353.125

Capital spending

Our ongoing programme of capital investment includes investment in assets such as roads, land and buildings, equipment and vehicles. 

We often spread the costs and benefits of this investment over a number of years. In 2024-25, we plan to spend £215.8 million on capital investment. This spending will be funded by a combination of government grants, affordable borrowing, developer contributions and proceeds from the sale of assets.

Breakdown of income and expenditure by service committee area for capital spending

Breakdown of income and expenditure by service committee area

Service committee area	Capital expenditure 2024-25
	£m
Adults and Health	0.8
Children and Families	38.9
Corporate Policy	10.4
Economy and Growth	80.3
Environment and Communities	19.0
Highways and Transport	66.5
Total	215.8

Detailed budget information

Our budget pages give full details of our budgets. On these budget pages, some areas of spending have the same name as the service portfolio but show a different figure from that given on this page. This is because on the budget pages we break the spending down into a wider number of service areas. To read the full budget breakdown, see Cheshire East budget.

Local Precepts over £140,000 2024-25

Town and parish councils who plan to raise more than £140,000 from local Council Taxpayers are required to provide details of their gross expenditure. Those town and parish councils affected are detailed below:

Local Precepts over £140,000 2024-25

Town / Parish Council	Gross Expenditure	Income & Reserves	Precept
	£	£	£
Alderley Edge Parish Council	577,430	402,430	175,000
Alsager Town Council	897,705	289,635	608,070
Bollington Town Council	369,349	84,349	285,000
Congleton Town Council	1,874,027	691,806	1,182,221
Crewe Town Council	1,479,704	149,150	1,330,554
Disley Parish Council	283,650	107,405	176,245
Handforth Town Council	253,870	83,870	170,000
Holmes Chapel Parish Council	360,612	97,000	263,612
Knutsford Town Council	849,537	130,026	719,511
Macclesfield Town Council	1,262,880	33,207	1,229,673
Middlewich Town Council	668,901	58,901	610,000
Nantwich Town Council	1,721,707	737,449	984,258
Poynton with Worth Town Council	664,204	68,700	595,504
Prestbury Parish Council	146,220	-3,780	150,000
Sandbach Town Council	792,182	20,000	772,182
Shavington-cum-Gresty Parish Council	291,112	58,858	232,254
Wilmslow Town Council	639,849	187,922	451,927

Contact Council Tax

Council Tax enquiry form

If you're unable to use our forms or have any questions about your bill you can call the Council Tax Customer Service Team on 0300 123 5013 during normal office hours, 8.30am to 5pm Monday to Friday, excluding bank holidays.

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Page last reviewed: 07 March 2024