CHESHIRE East Council must balance its annual budget and it does, every year without fail.

We have delivered a council tax freeze for the past five years and at the same time improved the performance of our services.

I want the best for our communities and local businesses and we are delivering better value for money for all residents each year.

It is good practice to highlight potential future financial challenges. We do so, as does every responsible local authority across the country.

I have set out a clear intention to freeze council tax once again – for a sixth consecutive year in 2016/17.

This is backed by a sound policy of promoting and delivering jobs, economic growth, improved skills and educational attainment, early intervention to deal with the root cause of problems, enabling people to live better and longer lives independently, and always protecting the most vulnerable.

These are the right things to do and we are doing them better each and every year – better for the great people of our borough and actually better and more cost effectively for the local taxpayer.

We are relentless in the pursuit of greater efficiency, reducing bureaucracy, management costs, targeting innovation and creativity based on need not wants, working and listening to our communities to deliver more with less.

I am not sure many other councils are doing as much as Cheshire East to keep council tax down.

Residents tell me about the financial pressure on their household budgets, they are concerned about increasing costs and by freezing council tax year on year, when others have been increasing theirs, our charge to B and D band taxpayers is now almost 20 per cent less than the English average.

This is a good deal for all households across the borough – and at the same time services are improving too.

Sound financial management and innovation is the key.

The gap for 2016/17 will be closed by some prudent activities already under way, including:

- £3.4 million from money set aside for business rates appeals, which have been settled;

- £1 million expected from growth in the business rates tax base and from shared benefits of collaboration with Greater Manchester;

- £1 million from new jobs and new homes that are increasing the council tax base;

- £2 million return on the ‘invest to save’ schemes in the capital budget;

- £2.2 million from government grants, such as the new homes bonus;

- £2.5 million from our digital revolution – investing in new technology to reduce costs;

- £1.7 million from eliminating growth through efficiency savings of 0.7 per cent;

- £2 million from reducing the impact of inflation on the council’s budget.

No black hole, just openness, transparency and an intention to carry on delivering better-targeted services for our communities.

Michael Jones Leader, Cheshire East Council