£100 million additional investment in services in Liverpool

Liverpool City Council’s proposed budget will see an additional £100 million invested in services over the coming year.

Around £90 million extra is set to be pumped into demand-led services such as adult social care, Children’s Services and homelessness to make sure vulnerable residents are supported.

And the council is to allocate more than £7.5 million for parks, green spaces and ‘street scene’ services such as rubbish removal, street cleansing and maintenance of grass verges. There will be over 100 new jobs and apprenticeships ring-fenced for local young people including 26 new barrow walkers and street washers to tackle grotspots. Every play park in the city will have its equipment replaced and parks will be brought up to ‘Green Flag’ standard.

This is in addition to £2.5 million committed last year which includes creating School Streets to keep children and parents safe, make life easier for residents and local businesses, improve air quality and encourage active travel.

A Community Renewal Fund will also be established – almost £4 million over the next two years for ward councillors to work with local groups to tackle deprivation and other issues in their ward.

An additional half a million pounds is also being set aside in the coming year for youth services on top of a further £500k which means £1 million to get more youth workers into communities.

The council is to spend a total of £231 million on ‘capital’ infrastructure projects in 2026/27, including investment in roads, safer and greener streets, school buildings, social care and health facilities, improving leisure facilities and more energy efficient buildings.

The Government has announced a three-year settlement for councils. Following the ‘Fair Funding’ review, which takes account of deprivation, Liverpool will move up from sixth to fifth highest in England by 2029 in terms of the amount spent per head of population (Core Spending Power).

The council will receive an additional £186 million in funding between now and 2029 – a rise of just over 25 per cent – with £69 million of it in the 2026/27 financial year.

Council Leader, Cllr Liam Robinson, said: “We now have a Government that is willing to listen to listen to councils and take account of the needs of big cities such as Liverpool when allocating funding.

“As a result of this, we have received the best settlement for 15 years and, although it won’t replace the funding we lost during the austerity years, it enables us to make choices about where to make investments.

“We are choosing to rebuild services in our communities, which will mean cleaner streets, better parks and green spaces, and improved leisure and youth facilities.

“Because we have received a three year settlement, we are able to plan for the future with certainty, enable us to commit to investments that will make a visible and positive difference in communities over the coming years.”

Deputy Council Leader and Cabinet Member for Finances, Resources and Transformation, Councillor Ruth Bennett, said: “Making sure that we deliver better quality, value-for-money services is at the heart of every single budget decision that we make. We never forget it is public money that we are spending.

“We are making progress in modernising our back office processes to improve efficiency, as well as bringing in more of the income we are owed such as rent, Council Tax and Business Rates and reducing spend on posting letters by £900k.

“We are also delivering a big programme of transformation across those services which are demand-led such as children’s and adult services and homelessness, to make sure that they are sustainable in the longer term.“

In line with most other local authorities in England, it is being proposed that Council Tax rises by 4.99 per cent.

The budget will be set at a meeting of all councillors on Wednesday 4 March.

LIVERPOOL’S BUDGET IN NUMBERS

• 8,000 – people receiving Adult Social Care
• 1,300 – looked after young people
• £34 million – on homelessness services
• £73 million – for the Council Tax Reduction Scheme to support poorer households
• £15 million – keeping the streets clean and removing rubbish
• £3 million – on the Citizen Support Scheme for people in crisis