Taxpayers across the West Midlands won’t be facing an added increase to their council tax bills from the region’s Mayor. Members of the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) Board are set to meet later this week to discuss the draft budget proposals for 2025/26.
And a report to Friday’s (January 10) meeting confirms no mayoral precept will be introduced for the coming financial year, although it will be kept under review in the coming years. Mayor Richard Parker has the power to introduce a charge on all seven local council areas in the region to help pay for some of the work he does.
His predecessor, Andy Street, didn’t introduce a precept during his tenure, although the WMCA board defeated his proposal for introducing a levy in 2018. The medium term financial position of the Combined Authority shows it faces a funding gap of around £93 million.
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The report said: “A Mayoral precept may only be issued in relation to the costs of the Mayor or of discharging Mayoral functions. Each year the WMCA is required to consider the requirement for a Mayoral precept to support activity.
“This report proposes that no Mayoral precept is raised for the 2025/26 financial year. The requirements for a precept in future years will be kept under review.”
Last year, Mr Parker told a meeting of the WMCA Joint Scrutiny and Overview Committee said the funding deficit is due to issues around transport and money raised from a precept wouldn’t be allowed to cover that. He said: “I’ve been really clear in my campaign and since I’ve got no intention of raising a precept and we only get there if there really is nowhere else to go.
“We’re not in that position at the moment but something that is really important about the precept is I can only raise a precept for functions defined as mayoral functions.
“And that has been agreed through a statutory instrument. Transport, as defined in that, is not a mayoral function. The biggest challenge we face around funding is around transport and a mayoral precept if I levied one wouldn’t be able to address those issues in any case.”