Greater Manchester residents will see the amount they pay in council tax towards mayoral functions carried out by Andy Burnham frozen from April.
The combined authority agreed that increasing the precept would place a burden on people already struggling through the Covid-19 pandemic.
With council tax set by local authorities already expected to rise in the coming years, leaders renewed calls on the government to provide them with more funding.
A meeting of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) on Friday, February 12, also saw plans to develop a successor to the scrapped regional spatial framework approved.
The ‘Right to Food’ campaign for people in the UK to be given a legal right to food was also backed, making Greater Manchester the first city-region in the UK to support the proposals.
Mayoral tax freeze
Council tax set by local authorities is expected to rise across Greater Manchester as town halls try to keep vital services like adult social care afloat despite the impact of Covid.
But the mayoral precept, which partly funds the fire service and other Greater Manchester-level purposes like rough sleeping support and free bus passes for young people, will stay the same for the 2021/22 financial year.
Andy Burnham proposed to keep the mayoral precept for Band B and Band D properties at £70.73 and £90.95 respectively.
Speaking in December the mayor said: “This has been a very difficult year for everyone in Greater Manchester.
“Many people will have lost their jobs or had significantly reduced income and will be uncertain about their futures.
“Now is not the time for me to be adding to their financial worries.”
The mayoral precept forms part of the overall budget set by Mr Burnham for the GMCA which includes funding for transport infrastructure, capital projects and waste management.
Last month the regional police and crime panel agreed to increase the policing precept, which partly funds Greater Manchester Police, by £10 instead of £15 as originally planned.
Government funding a ‘sham’
Mr Burnham and his colleagues also used the budget-setting process for the GMCA to make the case for the government to provide more money to councils during the pandemic.
Some local authorities have avoided huge shortfalls - such as the £100m expected in Manchester - thanks to a ‘better than expected’ government settlement.
But leaders were unanimous in saying that the one-off grants would not go far enough and offered them no way of planning for the future.
Councils have instead been given the power by the government to increase the adult social care precept within council tax to raise the money themselves.
Oldham council leader Sean Fielding said: “The refusal to deliver the money to councils that was promised is going to result in service cuts, pay freezes and redundancies.
“The government's lack of support for local government is nothing short of a betrayal. This whole situation also exposes the sham of the local government funding settlement.”
Councillor David Greenhalgh, the Conservative leader of Bolton council, did not defend the government’s attitude toward local government and said the plight of councils was being misunderstood in Westminster.
‘Plan of nine’ wins approval
Leaders gave the go ahead for the development of the new jobs and housing masterplan to replace the Greater Manchester Spatial Framework (GMSF).
Places for Everyone will see nine of the 10 boroughs work on how to land across the city-region can be best developed to encourage economic growth up to 2037.
Stockport will not be involved after withdrawing from the GMSF in December after opposition parties outvoted the Labour administration after raising concerns about green belt development.
A report says the new plan will allow the nine districts to progress strategic policies within the GMSF such as net zero carbon development and affordable housing.
‘Right to Food’
Greater Manchester has become the first city-region in the UK to back the Right to Food campaign to enshrine the right to food in law.
The Fans Supporting Foodbanks campaign wants the right to food to form part of the government’s National Food Strategy, the first independent review of England’s food system in 75 years.
Liverpool become the first city in the UK to lend their support to the campaign.
At the height of the pandemic a spotlight was thrown on food poverty, particularly among children, thanks to the campaigning efforts of Marcus Rashford last year.
The Manchester United star successfully pressed the government into multiple policy U-turn, including the extension of free school meals over the summer.
Recent analysis suggests that more than 4,500 more children across Greater Manchester have crossed the poverty threshold and became eligible for free school meals since the pandemic began.
Stockport council leader Elise Wilson said: “Covid has really laid bare the inequalities that have been exasperated through this crisis.
“These inequalities have been exasperated because we’ve had many years of underfunding in the public sector.”
As well as supporting the Right to Food campaign, Greater Manchester leaders also committed to develop their own strategy - ‘No Child Should Go Hungry’ - in a bid to tackle the root causes of poverty.
