Council tax is an annual fee paid to local authorities - like Wigan Council - to help fund local services.
It is just one of the sources of funding for local authorities.
Others include central government grants, fees and charges (such as parking charges or fees for hiring our facilities for weddings or events) and business rates.
Wigan Council provides more than 700 services.
The more well-known of these include social care (for adults and children), schools and education, libraries and waste management.
Less prominent but vitally important functions include registrar services, business support, licensing, planning and pest control.
Council tax is set by the council, within guidelines set by central government, and can vary depending on the valuation of your property and your personal circumstances.
Did you know?
Residents of Wigan Borough pay the lowest council tax rates across Greater Manchester and have done for several years.
How your Council Tax is spent
It’s important to remember that council tax is only a contribution towards the day to day running costs of delivering our services - it’s not a charge for individual services.
Council tax only contributes towards around 22% of the total amount we’ll spend delivering our services and does not contribute towards any capital investment schemes we deliver.
It costs around £13.2M a week to provide the services you need, with council tax contributing £2.9m towards these costs.
For every pound of your council tax, this is an example of how it would be spent:
26p on Adult Social Care
Including social care, public health, support and safeguarding.
29p on Children and Young People
Including Child Safeguarding, Children’s Social Care and School Support.
6p on Be Well Services
Including leisure centres, parks, wellbeing services, culture.
3p on Economy
Including economic development and growth, skills and enterprise, and housing services including emergency accommodation (excluding Housing Revenue Account) and council property.
27p on Environment
Including waste collection and disposal, highways and public realm and the passenger transport levy.
4p on Customer Services
Including libraries, council tax and NNDR collection and support, welfare support, registrars services and HR.
5p on Corporate Services
Including council finance, legal and democratic services.
Every week, we help to deliver countless services including:
213,277
bins were emptied
Helping over 1,160 children
across 254 routes to get to school safely
62,000 school dinners
provided for local children
68,718 tonnes
of waste was recycled
Repairing over 200 potholes
every week across 1200km of the boroughs highways
431km of road
gritted on our highway
3,874,496m2
of grass was cut
1010 people per week
supported in Long Term Residential / Nursing Care
527 children
were cared for by Wigan foster carers