Purpose

The purpose of this report is to approve the
collection rate and council tax base for Solihull and parish areas
within Solihull for the financial year 2026/27.

The council tax base represents the estimated number of houses
eligible to pay council tax (“chargeable dwellings”) in
the borough, expressed as a number of Band D equivalent
properties.

The number of chargeable dwellings takes into account households
where none of the occupants are required to pay council tax (e.g.
those occupied only by students) and those where the occupants are
entitled to discounts/reduced bills, for example because they live
alone or because they receive support under the council tax
reduction scheme. It is then converted to a number of Band D
equivalent properties to represent the Council’s tax base,
which is adjusted to take account of the estimated collection rate.
Once approved, the net tax base is built into the Council’s
Medium Term Financial Strategy (MTFS) and determines the level of
council tax funding available to the Council over this
period.

The tax base must be calculated in accordance with the Local
Authorities (Calculation of Council Tax Base) Regulations 2012 and
must be determined between 1 December and 31 January for the
following financial year.

Decision

The council tax base for Solihull and parish
areas for 2026/27, calculated in accordance with the Local
Authorities (Calculation of Council Tax Base) Regulations 2012, is
summarised below:

Solihull (whole area)
80,829
of which the council tax base for specific parish areas is:
Balsall
2,885
Barston
368
Berkswell
1,586
Bickenhill and Marston Green
2,501
Castle Bromwich
3,926
Chadwick End
364
Chelmsley Wood
2,952
Cheswick Green
1,860
Dickens Heath
2,219
Fordbridge
1,864
Hampton-in-Arden
1,496
Hockley Heath
830
Kingshurst
2,012
Meriden
1,269
Smith’s Wood
2,250
Tidbury Green
934

The net council tax base includes an assumed collection rate of
99%.

Alternative options considered

For 2026/27, the total tax base is derived by
taking the Council’s valuation list issued by the Valuation
Office Agency as at 30 November 2025. This is then adjusted for the
effect of discounts, exemptions and premiums as at the same date
and any new properties that have been built but have yet to be
assessed by the Valuation Office Agency.

The tax base is also reduced to reflect households in receipt of
council tax reduction (CTR) as at 30 November 2025, which are
treated in the tax base as partly or wholly exempt from council
tax. This includes the impact of the changes to the scheme that is
currently being consulted on.

The above calculation results in a gross tax base for 2026/27 of
81,645 Band D equivalent dwellings (compared to 81,602 in
2025/26).

The Council’s performance on council tax collection is
consistently in the region of 99%, when taking into account income
collected after the year end. In recent years, a slightly lower
collection rate of 98.81% has been assumed, based on combined
collection rates of 80% for the element of the tax base relating to
the council tax reduction scheme and 99% for the remainder of the
tax base. However, since the introduction of a simpler scheme in
April 2025 that gave more support to households and was easier to
understand, collection rates have improved and therefore, the
proposal is to increase the council tax collection rate to
99.0%.

The gross tax base multiplied by the collection rate of 99% gives a
net council tax base for 2026/27 for Solihull of 80,829 Band D
equivalent dwellings, compared with 80,631 Band D equivalent
dwellings in 2025/26, an increase of 198 Band D equivalent
dwellings.
This increase is largely as a result of the increase to the
collection rate from 98.81% to 99.00%.

The net tax base of 80,829 represents a decrease of 152 Band D
equivalent properties compared to the tax base originally assumed
in the approved MTFS for 2026/27 of 80,981. Based on the assumed
council tax increase of 4.99% in the approved MTFS, this represents
a reduction in income of £280,000 compared to original
assumptions. This will be reflected in the draft budget proposals
reported to the Resources and Delivering Value Scrutiny Board and
the Full Cabinet in February 2026.