Financial forecasts show the council’s budget deficit could grow to nearly £50m by 2031
Sandwell Council House
Council tax and the cost of garden waste collections are set to rise in Sandwell to cover a £17m hole in the council’s budget.
Sandwell Council said it will make more than £8m worth of cuts and savings as well as tap into just over £9m from its reserves to cover the shortfall in its finances for 2026/27.
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The proposed 4.99% increase in council tax would see the average band D bill rise by £91 from April next year to cover Sandwell Council’s services and is likely to rise even higher once the precepts for the region’s fire service and police as well as the West Midlands Combined Authority set their precepts.
Band A and band B – which covers around three quarters of Sandwell households – would rise by around £60 and £70 respectively for the council’s services alone.
The cost of green waste collections would increase in 2027, the budget proposals said. Other council fees and charges are set to rise but are yet to be confirmed.
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The council tax increase is predicted to bring in an extra £7m and the increased fee for garden waste collections an extra £200,000.
The council’s medium term financial plan also reveals the expected budget deficits for the next five years including £26m in 2027/28 rising to nearly £38m a year later, £43m in 2029/30 before finally reaching £48m by 2030/31.
Cuts and savings between £8 and £10 million would also have to be made each year until 2031 but would only chip away at the huge gaps.
The council has also revealed dozens of cuts and proposals to save or make money to help balance next year’s budget.
Five vacant positions for school crossing patrols would be scrapped and replaced with permanent zebra crossings to save money.
In September, the council introduced fortnightly bin collections which would see general waste and recycling collected on alternative weeks instead of weekly.
The move would see the council begin to see full-year savings, it said, with £1.3m expected to be saved next year.
Sandwell Childen’s Trust, the company set up to run children’s services on the council’s behalf, is also £20m in the red according to the budget proposals which will see Sandwell Council upping the price of the three-year contract it awards to the trust using council reserves to cover the deficit.
Huge rises in the cost of adult social care are predicted each year with an extra £140m expected to have been spent by 2031.
Inflation, population growth and demographic changes as well as historic adjustments are predicted to have cost an extra £355m on top of the entire council budget.
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