‘It’s been a slog in Oldham – but things are changing, slowly’

Town hall bosses have rubber stamped Oldham’s budget for 2026/27, which will see council tax rise by 4.99 per cent and £8m of cuts.

Despite having to make tough decisions to tackle a £20m black hole, cabinet members emphasised the borough will slowly become ‘better off’ due to changes to local government funding. Oldham received an additional £29m through policy changes and grants. 

But the council still faces soaring demand and costs in adult and children’s social care – which cost the local authority £14m more than expected – and homelessness, which added an extra £4.6m. 

Speaking at a cabinet meeting on Monday, February 23, the townhall’s finance boss councillor Abdul Jabbar said: “After a lot of work we managed to produce a balanced budget partly because the new Labour government was able to give us additional funding as well as a three-year-settlement. 

“Unfortunately, despite the increase in council funding, it wasn’t quite enough. We’ll have to make a saving of £8.1m. But what is really important in this context is that in the past we have used reserves to balance the budget, but we’ve not done that this time. We feel now given there is a change in the funding regime, it’s time to replenish our reserves.” 

Jabbar made clear the plan is to claw back some of the money used from reserves – a type of emergency savings account for the council – that has been gradually dwindling for the past decade. The council’s current balance is at £49m – still very close to the £36m threshold finance experts deem to be financially unsafe. 

Around £1.6m are due to be transferred into the reserves this year. 

Council leader Arooj Shah added: “We don’t expect the fairer funding formula to fix all our problems overnight. 

“It has been hard, it’s been a slog. But the fact that we’re going to invest an extra £10m in adult and children’s social care, that we’re going to improve roads and pavements through planned maintenance, that we’re planning to strengthen our youth services, create a rapid response team to deal with fly-tipping.”

Council bosses added that a rise in council tax is effectively unavoidable, after the government made clear a failure to do so would affect a local authority’s funding. It’s also planning to raise income by increasing almost all of its services by an average of 10 pc. 

This includes a rise in the cost of weddings and civil partnerships, with a Sunday ceremony at Chadderton Town Hall going up by £110 to £663. Graves are also going up, with families now charged an extra £119 for a standard plot, bringing the cost up to £1,270. 

Other changes include the introduction of a ‘fair share’ charge to people living in temporary accommodation who can afford to contribute a small amount to their rent; slashing plans to increase care workers’ salaries to the national living wage; and restructures within adult and children’s social care. 

The budget will be voted on by the entire council on March 4.