Devon council tax increase is in line with national average

The charge for the county council’s services is going up by 4.99 per cent compared with 2023-24 to £1,715.67 for an average Band D property. Upper tier local authorities – which include county councils - cannot raise their tax by more than 4.99 per cent without gaining approval from a local referendum.

Residents of East Devon also pay the tax imposed by the district council, which is £166.78 for a Band D property – a rise of around 3 per cent compared with the last financial year.

The total council tax for East Devon residents in Band D will be £2,348.20, which also includes the amount paid for policing (£274.50 in Devon and Cornwall) and the amount paid to their local town or parish council (an average of £91.57 in East Devon).

The Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities has published data showing the council tax increases for every local authority in England. This shows that the Band D average has increased in all cases with just two exceptions: Harlow district council, where the average is unchanged from 2023/24, and Lancaster district council, where the average is down 0.24 per cent from 2023/24. Some authorities have increased their tax by much more than the average, as the graphic shows.

The data also shows how average council tax bills in England have fluctuated between 2016-17 and the present day. Annual council tax increases remained below 1 per cent between 2010 and 2015, but rose to over 5 per cent for the first time in 2018/19.

Earlier this month the County Councils Network (CCN) called for an ‘honest discussion’ on what services local authorities should be required to deliver after it emerged that councils on average spend two-thirds of their budgets on care services.

At the time, Roger Gough, CCN’s spokesman for children’s services, said: “This month’s Budget confirmed that the public finances remain extremely tight. Therefore we need to have an honest discussion with all main political parties as we head into the general election on what councils can reasonably be expected to deliver, in a climate where substantive extra funds are unlikely and both demand and costs are set to rise.”

Shaun Davies, Labour chairman of the Local Government Association, said councils are starting the financial year in a precarious position and scaling back or closing a wide range of services.

“This means many are again left facing the difficult choice about raising bills to bring in desperately needed funding,” he said.

“It is unsustainable to expect them to keep doing more for less in the face of unprecedented cost and demand pressures.

“Keeping councils on a financial drip feed has led to the steady weakening of local services. Local government needs greater funding certainty through multi-year settlements to prevent this ongoing decline.”