Back at the end of last year, I had a quick look through Bristol's proposed budget for 2008/09.

These were the main figures for the proposed budget, and this year's increase in the authority's precept of the council tax (4.85%) was calculated from that figure. These were the headline figures (Click here if you're a feed subscriber):

 

Now, finally, the Budget Book for 2008/2009 is available. And the figures are dramatically different:

Now if you look at the final line, you'll see that the amount of money required in Council Tax is unchanged. But, the actual revenue budget of the council has increased by 7.8% from £327,865,000 to £353,128,000

You may be wondering how it's possible that the council had decided it needs an extra £25 million quid and yet has decided not to raise council tax. Well that's easy. It's a six stage process:

  1. Flog off the family silver (£9.6 million)
  2. Spend anything leftover from last year (£3.6m on the pie charts, £2.6m on the spreadsheets)
  3. Check down the back of the sofa for any loose change (£13 grand)
  4. Borrow from the bank
  5. Cut your contingency budget and hope nothing goes wrong (£1.2 million)
  6. Get London to bail you out with grants (paid for by central taxation and central borrowing)

More research is needed to understand the grant funding changes, but there's one thing that really stands out: every single council department increased their requirements between the Draft proposals in December and the final Budget. Every single one. Putting aside all the financial jiggery-pokery, £49 million was added to the budget between December and May. The Chief Executive's department alone increased the proposed spend by practically 50% from £14m to £20m.

More to follow, but for the moment consider this. Every single Bristolian - man, woman and child - now has a debt hanging around their neck of £964.40 due to local authority borrowing.