How Council Tax is spent

We collect all Council Tax in Preston, but only keep 16 pence in every pound to pay for our services.

The remaining money goes to the following organisations to pay for the services they provide:

Increase in Council Tax

From April 2021, Council Tax will increase in Preston by the following:

To see the Council Tax rates for 2021/22 please visit our Council Tax rates page.

The following shows how the Council Tax money collected from a band D property (£2,082.04) would be split between the different organisations:

Organisation	Amount	Percentage
Lancashire County Council	£1,456.19	69.9%
Preston City Council	£327.13	15.7%
Police and Crime Commissioner for Lancashire	£226.45	10.9%
Lancashire Combined Fire Authority	£72.27	3.5%

(figures exclude extra money collected for parish areas).

The table below shows how we will spend Preston City Council's allocation of Council Tax this year:

Service area	2020/21	2021/22
	£ million	£ million
Central services Council tax and business rates collection, local land charges, central and corporate expenses and democratic costs	8.9	8.7
Cultural services Heritage, recreation and sport and open spaces	5.9	5.9
Environmental services Cemetery and crematorium, environmental health, community safety, street cleansing, waste collection and licensing	9.6	9.9
Housing services Advice, neighbourhood renewal, housing benefits administration and payments, travellers' sites	41.2	39.4
Highways and transport services Traffic management, car parking and Riversway	1.5	1.1
Planning and development services Building control, planning, community and economic regeneration, property services and markets	10.5	11.6
Other services	4.1	2.8
Cost of Financing/Technical Accounting Adjustment	5.5	5.3
Sub total	87.2	84.7
Less income and grants	-64.6	-62.2
Total spending on services	22.6	22.5
Contribution from reserves	-1.9	-2.2
Business Rates retained	-5.6	-5.6
Central Government Funding	-2.2	-1.7
Preston City Council's council tax requirement (including Parish Precepts)	12.9	13.0