How we spend your money

Message from Councillor Muhammed Butt, Leader of Brent Council

Like councils across the country, Brent has made tough choices in setting the 2025/26 budget.

Difficult decisions are never easy, but they are required if we are to balance our budget, safeguard services, and make every pound count. I know we ask a lot of you each year, but our fragile funding system relies on everyone paying their part towards the vital services we all depend on.

Years of funding cuts* mean we now deliver more with fewer resources.

Brent Council now has half the number of staff it had a decade ago. Our ambitions for Brent have never changed, but our spending has - with more on an ageing population, and the costs of social care. Nevertheless, by using new technology like AI and working with our partners, we can do better.

For many of you, your only interaction with the council is your council tax letter, a direct debit, and your bin collection. But your council is much more than that, so here is what’s in store for the year ahead: 

• A £1.5m Hardship Fund to support those most in need during the cost of-living crisis
• A cleaner Brent with more community skips, more enforcement officers, and higher fines for littering
• More homes and more affordable homes by every means possible, plus repairs with a new mould-busting team for council tenants
• Investment in young people through top-performing schools, Family Wellbeing Centres, and holiday activity and food programmes
• A leaner, more efficient council that still protects services for older adults and those with disabilities.

Our community is our strength. If you can, please get involved - volunteer, attend local events, or simply be a good neighbour. Brent is our home, but we can only make change happen by working together.

Cllr Muhammed Butt
Leader of Brent Council

*The Revenue Support Grant, the main non ringfenced general grant from central government, has reduced from £116m in 2010 to £30.9m in 2025.

We are committed to making every penny count, delivering hundreds of services for local residents, 365 days a year. Here's how we spent your council tax last year.

Prosperity and Stability in Brent

• Brent Start helped 2,360 residents gain new skills
• Delivered 530 affordable homes with 1,000 new council homes being built this year
• £4.3m in cost-of-living support
• Helped 4,500 residents with housing, debt and more
• Licensed 20,000 properties, driving up standards for renters
• Brent Works helped 500 residents find jobs and apprenticeships.

Thriving Communities

• Our libraries welcomed 710,000 visitors
• £1.3m for community projects
• Approximately 4.7m visits to the website – up 12.5% from 2023/24
• Our Contact Centre answered 362,000 phone calls
• £1.4m on community safety and tackling anti-social behaviour, with 2,295 penalties issued
• 950 people supported by our Violence against Women and Girls services.

A Cleaner, Greener Future

• Cleared 21,000 fly tips
• Repaired 5,760 potholes
• Collected 31,000 tonnes of rubbish and recycling from 127,974 homes & kept streets clean
• Cut our carbon emissions by 71.6% since 2010
• Kept 110 award-winning parks and open spaces flourishing
• £9.3m looking after 315 miles of road and 529 miles of pavement. 

The Best Start in Life

• Created 427 new school places for children with special educational needs
• 4,350 school holiday activity places for children
• 97% of Brent schools are good or outstanding
• Took care of 295 foster children
• Supported 14,400 local people at our Family Wellbeing Centres.

A Healthier Brent

• Provided vital social care support to 4,600 elderly and vulnerable residents
• Our sports centres welcomed 1.2m visitors
• 3,500 free exercises classes
• 740 free oral health checks for children
• 3,270 health checks.

Your average Council Tax for 2025/26 is £41.02 per week*.

This is how each £1 will be spent on services residents rely on.

• 34p Adult social care
• 23p Children’s social care and early help
• 8p Waste, recycling and the environment
• 7p Housing and neighbourhoods (based on Band D property)
• 4p Customer services
• 1p Communities and tackling poverty
• 2p Culture, leisure and parks
• 23p The Metropolitan Police, London Fire Brigade and other Mayor of London Services. 

Each year, Brent Council sets council tax to help pay for important local services including education, libraries, rubbish and recycling, roads and social care.

The bill also includes a separate portion set by the Mayor of London which pays for the Metropolitan Police, London Fire Brigade and other Mayor of London services.

Calculating Council Tax

This year, Brent Council is increasing council tax by 4.99%. This includes 2% which goes towards the cost of caring for vulnerable adults in the borough. The Mayor of London is also increasing his portion by 4.06%. Overall, your total bill will increase by 4.8%.

What are the valuation bands?

The bands and charges for 2025-26 are shown below.

How much Council Tax will you pay?

You can see what band your property is in and the amount of Council Tax you need to pay in My Account.

You can contact the Valuation Office Agency (VOA) if you have any enquiries about your Council Tax band or Business Rates valuation.

The following tables show the movement between Brent Council’s Council Tax Requirement* and Gross Expenditure** for 2024/25 and 2025/26.

*Calculated in accordance with Sections 31 to 36 of the Local Government Finance Act 1992 as amended.

**Calculated in accordance with the requirements of Schedule 2 Part 2 of the Council Tax (Demand Notices) (England) Regulations 2011 as amended.

Council Tax requirement

Gross expenditure

The Secretary of State made an offer to adult social care authorities. (“Adult social care authorities” are local authorities which have functions under Part 1 of the Care Act 2014, namely county councils in England, district councils for an area in England for which there is no county council, London borough councils, the Common Council of the City of London and the Council of the Isles of Scilly).

The offer was the option of an adult social care authority being able to charge an additional “precept” on its council tax without holding a referendum, to assist the authority in meeting its expenditure on adult social care from the financial year 2016–17. It was originally made in respect of the financial years up to and including 2019–20. If the Secretary of State chooses to renew this offer in respect of a particular financial year, this is subject to the approval of the House of Commons.

The Mayor of London’s budget for 2025-26 sets out how he will fund his plans to continue building a fairer, safer, and greener London for everyone and provides resources to improve key public services in the capital. The budget ensures investment to tackle crime, build more affordable homes, reduce street homelessness, improve our transport network, and ensure London remains a world-leader in tackling air pollution and the climate crisis. 

The budget prioritises resources for the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) and London Fire Brigade (LFB) to keep Londoners safe. This includes resources for violence reduction initiatives, support for victims of crime, additional funding for frontline police officers, continued reform of the MPS and the delivery of projects to divert vulnerable young people away from gangs and violence. It also confirms funding to continue Universal Free School Meals in London’s state primary schools for a further academic year until July 2026. 

Council tax for GLA services

The GLA's share of the council tax for a typical Band D property has been increased by £18.98 (or 37p per week) to £490.38. The additional income from this increase in council tax will fund the MPS and the LFB. Council taxpayers in the City of London, which has its own police force, will pay £171.25.

Investing in frontline services

This budget will enable the Mayor to continue fulfilling his key priorities for London. This includes:

• Working with London boroughs to maintain existing concessionary travel and assisted door to door transport schemes. This includes, for example, maintaining free bus and tram travel for under 18s as well as free off-peak travel across the network for older Londoners, the disabled, armed forces personnel in uniform and eligible armed services veterans and protecting the Taxi card and Dial-a-Ride schemes
• Providing £147.5 million to continue to fund universal free school meals for London’s estimated 287,000 state primary school children for a third academic year. By July 2026 it is estimated that this programme will have saved London families up to £1,500 per child since its introduction in September 2023 
• Ensuring the MPS has the resources it needs to tackle violent crime by investing additional resources in front line policing and crime prevention. The Mayor has doubled investment in policing to help tackle crime, including recurring funding for 1,300 additional police officers funded from council tax and business rates income. While the Mayor provides MOPAC and the MPS with as much funding as possible, the impact of significant real-terms national government cuts over the last 14 years has left the MPS in a difficult financial position
• Tackling the underlying causes of crime through the rollout of funding to support disadvantaged young Londoners to access positive opportunities and constructive activities that allow them to make the most of their potential, as well as resources for new violence reduction initiatives. The Mayor has funded more than 500,000 positive opportunities to help divert vulnerable young Londoners away from crime – including through London’s Violence Reduction Unit
• Providing resources to roll out a transformation programme to support the LFB in implementing the recommendations of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry and other key improvements. The LFB now responds to emergencies faster and is rated as outstanding in how it responds to major and multi-agency incidents
• Freezing bus and tram fares in 2025 and retaining the one-hour Hopper fare thus making transport more affordable for millions of Londoners. The Superloop network will also be expanded
• Building on the success of delivering the Elizabeth line on its full timetable and route. The Elizabeth line has increased central London’s rail capacity by ten per cent and saw over 500,000 passenger journeys between its opening date in 2022 and early 2025. This has made it the busiest rail line in the UK. This follows on from the opening of the Northern line extension to Nine Elms and Battersea Power Station in September 2021
• Rolling out new trains on the Piccadilly line, with the first new trains serving customers from 2025 and upgrading the signalling on the District and Metropolitan lines
• Continuing to improve accessibility across TfL’s network, increasing the availability of step-free access and toilets. In 2025-26, TfL will increase investment in step-free schemes to make progress towards its goal of halving step-free journey times across the network, as well as its target of making 50 per cent of London Underground stations fully accessible. All 41 Elizabeth line stations are now step-free
• Continuing to tackle London’s housing crisis, by investing £1.5 billion in 2025-26 to increase the number of Londoners who have a safe, decent and affordable home. The Mayor will also allocate resources to tackle homelessness and reduce rough sleeping
• Investing in schemes designed to make walking, cycling and public transport safer, cleaner and more appealing in partnership with London boroughs.
  
  

Summary of the GLA Group budget

The following tables compare the GLA Group’s planned spending for 2024-25 with last year and sets out why it has changed.

The GLA’s planned gross expenditure is higher this year. This reflects the additional resources the Mayor is investing in policing and the fire brigade.

Overall, the council tax requirement has increased because of the extra resources for the MPS and the LFB and to secure funding to maintain existing transport services including buses and the tube network. There has been a 2 per cent increase in London’s residential property taxbase. Find out more about the GLA budget.