Council Tax

How we are funded

Council Tax contributes to 14.76% of our overall funding. The rest comes from business rates, government grants and other income such as car parking, licensing and planning permission, for example.

We approved our budget for 2026-2027 on 4th March 2026.

The amount that must be funded from local taxation, business rates and government grants, once all other funding is taken into account, is £817.575 million.

Gross budget

The gross budget is the total amount we plan to spend, before any income is taken into account.

For 2026-27, this is £1.8bn. This includes:

How the Council is Funded
£295.086m Localised Business Rates
£277.030m Council Tax Income
£245.458m General Government Grants
£817.575m Net Budget
(this includes other government grants which are service-specific)

Since 2010 we have made £551 million in budget savings due to reduced government funding and increased service pressures.

For 2026-27, we have a set Council Tax requirement of £277.030m.

This represents an increase of 4.99% in the council's share of the Council Tax.

4.99%

Increase

=

£13.168m

Additional income

=

£1.31

Per week extra to pay for Band A households

Other services that Council Tax pays for

£2,254.37

Council Tax for band D
(4.99% increase)

+

£293.97

Police
(11% increase)

+

£101.25

Fire
(5.19% increase)

+
LCR logo here

£24

Liverpool City Region Combined Authority

=
  • Total

    £2,673.59

Band D is used as the standard baseline value (or multiplier of) to calculate Council Tax for all other property bands (A-H). We set our core charge based on a Band D property, with lower bands paying a fraction (for A, for example) and higher bands paying a multiple (for H, for example)

Levies

Your Council Tax also helps pay for wider regional services, including:
Levy Amount
Passenger transport £38,046,863
Waste disposal £29,771,000
Environment £251,061
Fisheries £82,542