Coventry City Council has announced its council tax and spending proposals for the coming year and is confident that people in the city are getting a good deal.

The average rise per household will be £0.66 pence a week, a figure which leader of the council John Fletcher believes is very reasonable.

He said: 

"We are sure that this will be one of the smallest rises in the West Midlands, if not the smallest.

"The government recommended a rise of 4.5% and we are just a fraction above that so I think it shows that we have considered everything carefully."

One of the key areas that the council has identified for an injection of funds is social services, and in particular child care.

It was revealed earlier in the year that the social security department had spent £2.2 million on placing children in foster homes outside of Coventry.

£750,000 will now be spent on helping to solve this problem and chairman of the finance and policy team Arthur Waugh believes that in the long run this will save money.

He said: 

"The cost of fostering a child out of the city can be £2,000 a week and sometimes more.

"This money will go towards extensions to houses, purchases of property and provision of facilities to give foster parents in the Coventry the resources to look after the children.

"It will also go into looking after the children before they get to the stage of needing to be fostered, so it is actually more of a prevention than a cure for the problem."

The council has also revealed that this year’s budget will see the provision of a substantial investment in Coventry City Football Club’s new stadium in Foleshill – although it is not yet revealing how much.

The 40,000-seat venue has been earmarked to hold top concerts and exhibitions and Cllr Waugh is confident it will have a huge impact on the city.

He said: 

"The cost of creating a job is around £5,000 when you have taken into account training and all the extras.

"This project will create 5,000 jobs which would total £25 million worth of employment in the city.

"We will not be investing anything like that much in the project but it just highlights the value of it.

"We missed out when the NEC was built and we are not going to miss out again."

Another service to receive a financial boost will be education. Education will receive an extra £5.9 million this year and £12.6 million next year to increase standards.

Other new expenditure includes £4.4 million to meet the requirements of the Disability Discrimination Act and £2.5 million to modernise the City Council's IT and communications infrastructure.

One new expenditure that is sure to raise eyebrows is the provision of over £60,000 for the training for new councillors.

This constitutes over £1,000 per year per councillor but Cllr Fletcher believes it is essential to the smooth running of the council.

He said: 

"At present new councillors receive virtually no training and with the changes in council that are planned this needs to be looked at."

There will also be a further £3 million spent in central Coventry in conjunction with the City Centre Company.

NEW COUNCIL TAX CHARGES