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COLUMN: 'Increasing council tax by any amount is unpopular, but it is necessary'

By Nick Mannion 27th Feb 2026

6 comments | Opinion

Opinion by Nick Mannion 27th Feb 2026 6

Cheshire East Council leader Nick Mannion discusses the council tax increase (Credit: Labour)

Cheshire East Council has many legal responsibilities and duties to its residents and communities.

The current cost of delivering these statutory services, which support our most vulnerable residents, currently make up 74% of the council's budget. Everything else therefore comes out of the remaining 26%. So, these non-statutory services get squeezed, and the cycle continues. To protect and improve our services, the council has only a limited set of financial options available.

Decisions made in the past not to raise council tax at all, or even to keep pace with inflation, has lowered the council's base level of income, year after year. Instead, the previous administration rashly used financial reserves to balance the books. The cumulative effect of these historical decisions has meant that the council has lost over £22 million in income. Worse, these decisions left the council with no reserves.

Since I was elected leader, a stronger grip on spending has been put in place. An ambitious Transformation and Improvement Plan has been launched to change the way the council works, and there are now robust business plans in place which deliver savings. In adult social care, pilot schemes are already not just delivering services more efficiently, making tangible savings, but are also improving outcomes for residents. These successful pilot schemes are being rolled out across the borough, and as such further savings will be realised.

A 4.99% council tax increase is not enough alone to put the council on a stable financial footing. For the coming year we will also need to borrow to balance our budget. We don't shy away from the reality of the council's situation. The Cheshire East Labour Group is determined to see that the delivery of our Transformation and Improvement Plan will see borrowing reduced year on year until the council is in a position to start building its essential reserves and reduce debt, whilst protecting services to our most vulnerable residents.

The new Labour government is also making a difference to local authorities. Ninety percent of all council's SEND deficits are to be taken on by central government. This is very welcome, and we are spending more on children's services, on road maintenance and homelessness. We are already seeing the extra funding improve our roads, and an accelerated programme of resurfacing works are scheduled for 2026. However, the previous administration left a backlog of £115m for road maintenance, so it will be a long haul back to getting our roads in a well-maintained condition.

So the council is moving forward at pace. We have a strong leadership team and dedicated staff. Everyone is working together and we are all determined to continue the pace of change.

Increasing council tax by any amount is unpopular, but it is necessary.

The Cheshire East Labour Group will always make decisions in the best interests of the whole council, the whole borough and with the most vulnerable residents in mind. The council's finances are moving in the right direction. The council finance officer's duty, and mine, is to put the council on a stable financial footing. We are getting closer to that goal.

Nick Mannion - Leader, Cheshire East Council

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Comments (6)

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If you didn’t waste money on painting lines on the car park by the lake you might have some more money

Let’s stop pretending this is bold financial leadership. Borrowing to balance the books is not strategy. It is sticking the weekly shop on Klarna and congratulating yourself for having a full fridge.

The shopping still needs paying for. With interest.

If a council has to borrow to fund everyday services, that is not transformation. That is deferral. It is the public sector equivalent of saying, this will be someone else’s headache after the next election.

Residents are being asked for a 4.99% increase while the council also takes on more debt. That is not belt tightening. That is stretching the belt and hoping the buckle holds.

Where is the visible investment that permanently reduces overheads. Where is the structural reform that lowers the cost base year after year. Where is the evidence that underperformance has consequences.

In any functioning business, if you employ someone who costs more than they deliver, you do not keep them because the job title sounds important. You remove them. You hire someone who can at least cover their salary and ideally generate value. It is not cruel. It is competent management.

Why does public administration seem allergic to that logic.

If commercial assets underperform, who fixes them.
If projects run over budget, who is accountable.
If layers of management duplicate work, who removes the duplication.

Hard decisions are what leadership looks like. Not warm statements about pace and progress while quietly increasing borrowing.

Debt is useful when it funds investment that reduces future costs. Borrowing to plug a revenue gap is not investment. It is survival dressed up as reform.

Taxpayers are not fools. They understand social care pressures. They understand SEND costs. They understand inflation. What they do not understand is why inefficiency appears to be tolerated while households are expected to absorb another rise.

You cannot keep telling residents finances are moving in the right direction while adding to the credit card.

If this were a private company, shareholders would be demanding answers. Council taxpayers deserve the same respect.

At some point, someone has to stop putting the weekly shop on instalments and actually sort out the income and expenditure.

Anything else is just borrowing time. And time, as ever, sends the invoice.

Maybe its time for change from this lot and that lot[tory],can't get any worse,well maybe but who knows.

The Conservatives under Michael Jones didn't raise the tax for several years, not eve by small amounts, meaning they didn't top up the savings fund. But they did rush out and spend cash on buying the old bus station/Queensway site without a clear plan and then tied us up in a contract with a developer who also didn't seem to be sure before pulling out when the Conservative government cancelled HS2 and killed any chance of the site being viable.

By the way, who noticed that the Conservatives alternative budget proposal included scrapping a £405,000 fund for road improvements across all wards...