Being ruthlessly financially efficient

Hammersmith & Fulham Council is the only authority in London to have cut, and then frozen, council tax over the last four years. Find out how we have done this.

Hammersmith & Fulham Council has the third lowest council tax bills in the country.

We're different from most councils, challenging old-fashioned thinking and stamping out wasteful practices. We're radically transforming the council - modernising and reforming services on a grand scale to enable us to cut costs, without affecting the quality of our services.

And we’ve done this despite government austerity cutting our funding by £73million (59 per cent in real terms) since 2010.

We're working hard to make sure everyone pays their fair share of council tax - collections rates are currently running at 97.5 per cent of the total owed.

We’re continuing to provide free home care for older and disabled residents, having scrapped charges in 2014. And we’re putting more money into adult social care services.

How have we done it?

We’ve made this possible through financial efficiency and cutting waste, including:

  • securing £643million from developers by taking a tough approach to negotiations
  • cutting waste, including scrapping glossy magazines
  • cutting senior manager posts and reducing staff numbers by two thirds since the 1990s
  • using big data to predict demand for services and helping people earlier, at lower cost
  • getting better deals from our suppliers and cutting office costs, saving £16million since 2015.

Third lowest council tax in the country

Read more about our council tax and how your council tax is spent.

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