The leaders of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Council have waved through its budget for 2025-2026.
Following a full council meeting on 5th March, the budget was signed off. Council tax will go up by four per cent – one of the lowest increases in London. This is made up of two per cent for council tax and two per cent for the “social care precept”. An average Band D property will see an increase from £1,037.58 to £1,079.08, an increase of £41.50 from last year.
Other key takeaways from the budget announcement are:
- over the next three years the council plans to spend over £500 million on housing, council estates, schools, highways, transport, public spaces and parks.
- next year alone, a further £677 million will go on local services, such as bin collections and streets cleaning.
- £750,000 to go to 15,000 low income residents in a £50 cash giveaway to help with the cost of living crisis. Cash goes to people already on housing benefit and universal credit via bank transfer or a voucher. Payments will be made by the end of June. Applicants can see if they are eligible by visiting RBKC’s dedicated web page here.
- A further 13,000 residents on low income will get a reduction in council bills, and free schools meals will be made available for thousands of eligible pupils outside of term time.
Leader Cllr Elizabeth Campbell addresses the full council budget meeting
A full guide to the budget can been read here and the full video of the meeting can be viewed here. Sadly, it is only two hours and 59 minutes long, but it may fill a restless content gap, if ever Citizen readers run dry on Sky and Netflix.
Leader Cllr Elizabeth Campbell said: ‘My promise to you is that through the difficult times ahead, we will continue to work hard to keep costs down and make sure we spend your money with the utmost care. Despite budget pressures within local government, the Council has managed to set a balanced budget.
‘Whilst many councils are on the verge of bankruptcy, I am very proud that we have set a balanced budget and kept taxes low for our residents. Times are tough for local government, and we are no exception with £40 million to save over the next four years. By transforming our services, we are saving £16 million this coming year. Meanwhile we are focusing investment in what really matters to our communities – keeping our streets clean, improving our homes, and creating more amazing public spaces.’
Letter from Elizabeth Campbell, Leader of the Council
Dear Resident
At this time of the year, I feel it is important to write to you directly. Firstly, to thank you for the part you play in helping make this borough one of the best places to live in the UK. Secondly, to thank you for your contribution via Council Tax that helps us maintain high standards across our services – the important things like street cleaning, bin collections, support for children, and care for the elderly and the most vulnerable.
This year we are proposing a low Council Tax increase, and we take pride in the fact this will be one of the lowest increases in London.
We are proposing a smaller than expected increase for two reasons. One, we know how difficult rising costs are for many people in Kensington and Chelsea, and we want to make sure we do all we can to help. And two, we believe that taking money from people’s pockets through taxes should be the very last thing we look at when faced with savings and challenges.
Like many councils across the country, we are facing financial uncertainty and difficulty. Our budget gap – driven by reduced funding from Government and rising costs – is £40 million over the next four years. This means we have to be leaner, efficient, and more focused. An organisation that continues to prioritise what our residents want most, making sure it does the basics better than anyone else.
Next year we will spend £677 million on important day-to-day local services and the delivery of major priorities set out in our four-year Council Plan, which can be found on our website.
The last 12 months has been an incredibly busy time. We have built 32 award-winning new homes for social rent and market rent at Acklam Road. As well as new homes at Kelso Cochrane House and Hewer Street.
Over the last three years, we have invested more than £7 million in our parks including Kensington Memorial Park and Holland Park – and work continues on new open spaces across the borough. We have continued to build and invest in our amazing public spaces, enhancing small shopping streets like Bute Street and supporting larger projects like iconic Sloane Street.
And over the next five years, we have committed to spend £4.7 million on youth service grants, investing once again in our Ofsted outstanding-rated Children’s Services. We also set aside £750,000 to go back into residents’ pockets to help with the rising cost-of-living, with more than 14,000 low-income households eligible for a £50 payment, alongside continued support for school meals.
My promise to you is that through the difficult times ahead, we will continue to work hard to keep costs down and make sure we spend your money with the utmost care. Therefore, our Council Tax precept will increase by two per cent this year, and our social care contributions will increase by two per cent.
This means an average Band D property (excluding Garden Squares) will see an increase from £1,037.58 to £1,079.08, or less than 80p per week. Where a property lies empty for one year, we will charge a premium rate of up to 100 per cent Council Tax.
Elizabeth Campbell
Leader, Kensington and Chelsea Council
Budget Speech by Cllr Johnny Thalassittes
Lead Member for Finance, Customer Services and Net Zero Council
‘Mr Mayor, councillors, I am grateful for the opportunity to present our budget tonight.
However, £270m of that is on temporary accommodation.
Whilst Kensington and Chelsea is a very proud blue dot in this city’s political red sea…
…and although we are not one of a self-styled ‘gang of seven’, the London local authorities insisting someone else always bails them out…
…we are not an island, and we face big and mounting financial pressures.
These pressures include temporary accommodation as mentioned, but also social care – looking after people who are vulnerable and who have often contributed themselves for many many years before now needing our help and support.
…both are in common with many of our neighbours, we are often the last remaining safety net.
One additional pressure that could be solved tomorrow however, is the nonsensical spectacle of Christmas Eve one year local government finance settlements, meaning budgets and biscuits side by side at the Christmas table, and just crumbs remaining for non-statutory services in many boroughs.
Why no Blue Box? Cllr John Thalassites, Lead Member for Finance, delivers his budget speech
…diverse, cosmopolitan and outward-looking – from the world-famous Portobello Market to Kensington Palace, to Sloane Street and King’s Road – there are also problems. The Grenfell tragedy put into sharp relief the need for this council to change. Some people have felt change, but other people feel we have not changed enough. This budget puts £12mn into Grenfell recovery, as vowed last year, and safeguards the principle participatory budgeting, for example two further Grenfell Projects Fund rounds, building on new resident-led service standards and improved complaints performance (where around 90 per cent of complaints are now responded to on time).
I have visited award-winning Council homes at Hewer Street with Cllr McVeigh, started by Cllr Taylor-Smith. I have also visited amazing spaces, such as the newly re-planted Bute Street, with Cllr Will, as well as Hogarth Road, where works are underway.
I am proud that the balanced budget in front of us means more new Council homes at Barlby Road, where works continue. I am also proud that the budget ringfences money for a new riverside open space in Chelsea, with a possible football pitch, the first of its kind for a generation in an area that has suffered from the cumulative burden of successive major works.
I have visited Kingsbridge Road with Cllr Addenbrooke, and I am happy that Cllrs Will and Rendall are working up plans to transform the services provided at the site. I have also visited schools, such as Avondale and Colville, with Cllr Faulks, and seen the difference net zero heating systems can make to operational sites’ carbon footprint. I am proud there will be net zero works at Park Walk School in Stanley ward in 2025/26, bringing down emissions from top to bottom of the borough.
…to govern is to choose.
Transformation and Savings – which looks not just at staffing, though that matters, but also
the buildings we use and own
better use of funding streams like s106 and CIL
and commercialisation, raising greater income with minimal disruption – for example advertising on bus shelters
Mr Mayor
It is possible to implement digital projects in the Council – and to do so in a way that keeps costs down and makes it easier for residents to access services. Take our parking permits, which will – thanks to joint work with Cllr Kemahli and a new customer relationship management tool (CRM) – accept subscriptions and direct debits from summer 2025, meaning that countless needless hours on the phone or in the Customer Services centre can be eliminated, freeing up resources and capacity.
In all… we will deliver £16m of savings next year, building on more than £10m of savings in each of the past two years. All the time, keeping taxes low.
Hitting residents in their pockets should always be a last resort, not a first instinct.
But, Mr Mayor, Labour are now in Government, and they have also made choices.
What have they done to stamp duty? UP!
What have they done to capital gains? UP!
National insurance? UP
What have they done to VAT on private schools? Inheritance tax? And non-dom status? UP!
Each and every time they are confronted with whacking residents for more cash, or service reform… they choose the easy option for themselves.
Most damaging to Kensington and Chelsea of all the Labour Government’s tax hikes will be their changes to employer national employer contributions.
Labour’s changes to National Insurance contributions will mean £3m of costs, which councils only learned they would pick up the tab for in the Government’s recess rush to get bad news out of the door. This £3m sum is equivalent to three per cent of residents’ Council Tax.
I may have spent longer discussing Kensington Labour’s budget plans – and it is great to see the Greens are starting to think about money for a change as well! – had there been much new. But the changed Labour Party – under so-called ‘new leadership’ – has the same old and tired ideas as before. They want to soak the rich, grow your taxes and bloat the civil service.
Mr Mayor, this Conservative budget is also true to Conservative principles.
We are prioritising low taxes – with the city’s lowest tax rise, on one of London’s lowest existing rates.
We are focusing on what matters to residents… £750,000 investment in jet-washing, graffiti-busting and litter-picking, whilst keeping our twice weekly bin collections
We are there for people who need us most… with £550m in the Housing Revenue Account to improve the standard of our homes
We are becoming a leaner organization… introducing a CRM and piloting artificial intelligence
We are preserving and enhancing the borough’s amazing spaces… from completed schemes, such as Chelsea Green and Hollywood Road, to new schemes, such as Gloucester Road and Kensington Park Road
And we are championing aspiration for people… with a third consecutive Ofsted ‘Outstanding’ rating for Children’s Services, the best result in the country.
I wish to turn to underlying issues with the rising cost-of-living, Mr Mayor. It is still a problem, even if it has seemingly gone out of fashion in terms of media coverage.
Although less prominent in national news than one or two years ago, the simple fact is this…
…many residents still cannot easily put a roof over their heads and/or pay for essentials. I was born in temporary accommodation in Kensington and Chelsea, and I understand how it feels to skip meals and to see close family members do the same, absolute poverty living cheek by jowl with extreme wealth.
That is why this Conservative Council will not just protect the Council Tax Reduction Scheme – which reduces the burden on 14,000 of the most vulnerable households in K&C, at a cost of £13m…
…this is at a time when half of London boroughs are slashing their equivalent Council Tax support in a shameful abdication of their duties to support the poorest in our society
In addition, this Council will also distribute £50 to 15,000 of the borough’s lowest-income households, one of the city’s most generous and important support payments.
This will build on the £100 payments made in each of the past two years – supported by 97 per cent of 1,300 residents consulted. Whilst we know this will not solve all people’s problems, I – and we – know it can make a difference, and residents have told us it makes a difference.
Mr Mayor, I will close by thanking Leadership Team colleagues – especially our leader Cllr Elizabeth Campbell for her support over the past year, with both managing the ups and downs of civic life and also producing a robust and balanced budget – as well as the Chief Executive and senior management team for their insight and challenge during the process.
I am confident the budget in front of us will make this a leaner organisation, better equipped to meet the challenges ahead – in a difficult financial climate – and will help members deliver a greener, safer and fairer borough.’