Council agrees 2024-2025 budget and strikes the District Rate

At a Special Council meeting held on Thursday 08 February 2024 at the Townhall, Enniskillen, Fermanagh and Omagh District Council agreed a revenue budget of £44.3 million, a Capital Plan of £13.75 million and the District Rate for 2024-2025.

Significant work has been undertaken over recent months to prepare a budget that funds key local services and a comprehensive capital programme to improve the whole district, strengthen local communities and enhance the wellbeing of residents, within an ongoing challenging economic environment of cost pressures and a reduction in Central Government funding.

The Council has continued to manage its finances prudently and has implemented £1.3m in budget savings, drawn £1m from the Covid reserve and actively pursued external funding and income generation opportunities to minimise this year’s district rate increase and impact on ratepayers.

Councillors struck a District Rate increase of 4.72% for domestic (residential) and non-domestic (business) properties, representing an increase of £1.83 per month for the average domestic (residential) property with a capital value of £115,000 and an extra £9.58 per month for non-domestic (business) properties with an average net annual value of £10,000, on the 2024-2025 District Rate portion of the rates bill.

The Council is acutely aware of the ongoing financial challenges faced by ratepayers and has allocated an additional £315,000 in 2024-2025 to support local communities and strategic growth. This is in addition to the allocation of more than £800,000 to fund a grants and bursary programme for community, voluntary and sporting organisations and individuals across the district and over £250,000 to support the provision of local advice services for residents of the district, as has been allocated in previous years.

The Council also plans for an ambitious £13.75m capital investment programme in 2024-2025 to improve local infrastructure and facilities for the benefit of all. Almost half the cost of the capital investment programme attracts external funding opportunities to further minimise the cost to ratepayers. In total, £7.75m of the projects attract £6.4m external funding, including the proposed redevelopment of the Fermanagh Lakeland Forum which is subject to approval by Council of a Full Business Case and, which if approved, will secure total Levelling Up Fund (LUF) funding of £20m.

Other proposed capital projects (£6m) are Council funded. These include:

• ongoing delivery of the Council’s Play Strategy to upgrade play areas across the district;
• Strategic Capital Projects and Community Capital Grants;
• leisure centre upgrade works across the District;
• essential investment in new vehicles, equipment and plant to further support service delivery; and
• development works at waste facilities.

The setting of the District Rate will generate approximately £43.1million of rates income to support the delivery of key services across the Fermanagh and Omagh district in 2024-2025 and meet the Council’s priorities as set out in the Fermanagh and Omagh Community Plan 2030 and the Council’s Corporate Plan.

The Council is responsible for delivering a range of core and statutory services including waste collection and disposal; Environmental Health; Registration of births, deaths marriages and civil partnerships; Planning; Building Control and cemeteries. It also delivers a number of additional services to support and enhance the wellbeing of ratepayers including leisure and recreation, theatres and tourist facilities, street cleansing and public conveniences and community and business support.

The rates bills, issued by Land and Property Services (LPS), is made up of the District Rate (set by Council) and the Regional Rate.  The Regional Rate is agreed by the Northern Ireland Executive to support the delivery of services such as roads, health, education, emergency services, law and order and social services.

As the Regional Rate has yet to be set by the Northern Ireland Executive, the overall impact on the rates bill for 2024-2025 is not known.

Fermanagh and Omagh District Council receives approximately 45% of the income raised through the overall rates bill. The remaining 55% is paid to Central Government.

For further information on Fermanagh and Omagh District Council’s 2024-2025 budget and the setting of the District Rate, including a ‘How we use your rates’ online tool where ratepayers can check the exact contribution they make to the Council to fund local services and useful Questions and Answers, please visit the Rates section on the Council website.

To view the Net Revenue budget for 2024-2025 click here