Haverhill residents face above inflation rise to council tax payment as town council deals with huge jump in National Insurance costs
Residents of Haverhill will have to pay more towards the town council’s share of the council tax due to a massive hike in employer National Insurance (NI) costs.
In the last financial year, Haverhill Town Council (HTC) spent £65,000 on its staff NI contributions but as a result of changes made in the Government’s autumn Budget that has gone up by £38,000 for 2025/26 - a rise of 61 per cent.
As a result, the HTC precept (its share of the annual council tax bill faced by households) will increase by 6 per cent, equal to a 16p per week (£8.32 per year) rise for a Band B property and a 21p per week (£10.94) increase for Band D.
The precept, and the town council’s annual budget, was agreed at a full meeting of councillors on Tuesday - although Cllrs Joe Mason and Paul Firman did abstain in the vote.
Clerk to the town council, Colin Poole, explained that its NI bill last year was £65,000 but will now adjust to £103,000.
As a result the precept rise of 4.21 percent predicted by HTC prior to the Government’s Budget has been replaced by an actual rise of 6 per cent.
Mr Poole said: “That is 2 percent on the precept. In terms of budget setting briefing last year we predicted a 4.21 percent increase was needed this year. It is now 6 percent so that is 2 per cent on the precept. We have absorbed some of it but that's your 2 per cent increase there.
“The councillors are very aware that while they are talking about a very small portion of the council tax, it all adds up.
“My councillors were entirely sympathetic. They would like to get back to delivering no more than an inflationary increase (currently at 2.5 per cent in the UK) on the precept.
“Whilst this year their priority was maintaining services for people, next year they will be looking to prioritise keeping council tax down as much as possible.
"It was either start cutting services, and we may well have to do that next year, or pass on a slightly larger increase."
In the Budget-setting briefing prepared for Tuesday’s meeting, it said: “When councillors set the budget for the current financial year there was already a recognition that the precept would have to go up more steeply for 2025/26, unfortunately due to pressures such as employers’ NI the actual increase will have to be steeper yet.“
After the meeting, Cllr Mason gave more insight into why he abstained from voting in favour of the budget and precept.
He said: "When it comes to taking money out of people's pockets at least we should have conversations about what's right or wrong.
"We need to look very closely at all our services that we provide to make sure we are providing value for money for our tax payers.”