What you will pay?

Based on the five per cent council tax increase agreed at Tuesday's Dorset Council meeting, the following basic annual charges will apply – to which any town and parish council precepts must also be added.

The Dorset Council tax share of the charges from April is made up by a 1.997 per cent general council tax increase and a 2.995 per cent social care precept.

For the 'average' Band D house, the council's annual tax rate will be £1,779.39 to which has to be added the fire and rescue precept and the Dorset Police precept, bringing annual payments to £2,112.85 before any town of parish council precepts are added.

The full band payments for Dorset Council Tax only are –

A £1,186.26; B £1,383.97; C £1,581.68; D £1,779.39; E £2,174.81; F £2,570.23; G 2,965.65; H £3,588.78.

For the police authority the following additional amounts will have to be added –

A £170.39; B 198.78; C 227.18; D £255.58; E £312.38; F £369.17; G £425.97; H £511.16.

For the fire authority the following additional payments will apply –

A £51.92; B 60.57; C £69.23; D £77.88; E £95.19; F £112.19; G £129.80; H £155.76.

The combined payments of Dorset Council, police and fire will vary between £1,408.57 for a band A home, to £2,112.85 for the 'average' Band D home with Band H properties paying £4,225.70.

Parish and town council precepts have to be added, where these are charged. These vary from nothing in some areas to £242.76 in Bridport, £226.04 in Blandford, £198.21 in Dorchester, £226.70 in Gillingham, £102.91 on Portland, £156.62 in Shaftesbury, £225.76 in Sherborne, £213.37 in Sturminster Newton, £157.15 in Swanage, £203.09 in Wareham, £185.69 in Weymouth and £135.14 in Wimborne Minster.

With all charges and precepts added a Band D home in Dorchester from April will pay a total of £2,311.06 or £44.45 per week, equivalent of approximately £6.35 per day.

Spending

The council's biggest areas of spending are adult social care and children's services, accounting for £124.9m and £52.8m respectively; street cleansing, waste collection and disposal accounts for £27.4m; travel £13.3m; education and learning £14.4m; customer services including libraries and archives £6.5m; environment and wellbeing £5.4m; housing £3.5m; highways and parking £2.9m (although in a normal year this also produces around £6m in income); communities and public protection £3.1m; planning £3.2m; property costs £2.7m; supporting businesses and job creation £1.2m with £29.6m on corporate services and £12m on central finance.

It gives the council a total budget for the year of £312.4m.