Hounslow would lose out on nearly £62 per household next year, under proposed government funding cuts.
Hounslow Council would receive a total of £208.5 million in central government grants and council tax in 2014/15, down by £6m, or 2.8 per cent from last year, under the plans.
That equates to a loss of £61.65 per household, though the figure does not include other grants and charges, which accounted for the bulk of the council’s £615 million income last year.
A further 1.8 per cent reduction is proposed for the following year, equivalent to nearly £38 per household.
The provisional local government finance settlement was announced by the Department for Communities and Local Government on Wednesday, December 18.
Sir Merrick Cockell, chairman of the Local Government Association (LGA), which represents councils across the country, said: “Today’s settlement confirms that councils will continue to be at the sharp end of public sector spending cuts up to 2016, but that Government has started to listen to local authorities and made some important concessions without which local services would have suffered.”
He added that the next two years would be the ‘toughest yet’ for councils and those relying on their services, and said it was ‘unacceptable’ that local authorities were only learning a week before Christmas - three months before they must set their budgets - how much they would have to spend next year.
The settlement also includes an extra £2.35bn ‘basic needs funding’ for councils across the country to provide extra school places by 2017.
A slice of that cash would come in handy for Hounslow Council, which still needs to find another £29 million to create an extra 3,150 primary school places for 2015/16.
