How council tax has consistently outpaced inflation

The above graph comes from the BBC and shows how council tax rises have consistently outpaced general prices over a decade.

Eric Pickles MP told The Sun that Gordon Brown was to blame for the situation: "Gordon Brown’s fingerprints are all over the fact that council tax bills have now doubled under Labour, making it his sneakiest stealth tax.  Mr Brown’s only plan is to hit the public with more tax hikes, with new bin taxes on the way.”

Earlier this week a report from the Audit Commission revealed that "almost a third of councils in England make more money from services such as parking, recreation and school meals than council tax... local authorities had made £10.8bn from charges and fees in 2006/07 - equivalent to £210 per person."

Comments

[Daniel]

With Conservatives now controlling most of local government, it'll now make even more sense for the Government to shift costs onto local councils, conveniently blaming Tory mis-management, in-efficient councils etc etc.

[Robin Millar]

Meaningless and misleading. The implication is that the two are linked (which they are not) and should reflect that (which they do not).

To quote Sir Simon Milton, speaking today about this year's 4% increase in Council Tax, "Keeping council tax down has been made harder by several government departments shifting extra costs onto councils whilst limiting funding from central government to a real terms one per cent increase."

[Sally Roberts]

At least I am a resident of the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham where once again we will be getting a reduction in our Council Tax! Other Councils - watch and learn!

[deborah]

It may be convenient to blame the government but, as Sally says, some Council's have managed to keep costs down.
Regrettably many councils have just drifted through the last few years, taking up all the govt's "pump primed" schemes to tick boxes for their CPA ratings and boasting about the new "services" they have introduced (the legendary 5-a-day fruit coordinators come to mind). As the initial funding dries up the bill falls on the council tax payer but having expended so much effort praising the 5-a-day fruit coordinator, it is hard for councils to admit that they are a waste of money.
The real question is - how much of the increase in town hall spending could have been avoided if councillors had been prepared to apply proper Tory values in the first place?

[Chris]

This years big hitter has got to be the concessionary fares scheme, which is being scandalously underfunded by the government. As the destination authority is the one liable for the fare, regional shopping centres will be the hardest hit. It also doesn't help that these authorities are often inhabited by the less well off.

I'd hope that all Conservative administrations are aiming for a below inflation rise, if not a cut in rates altogether. Labour and the Lib Dems waste so much money on pet projects when they are in control, so authorities recently taken over should be able to find a good few savings!

[Bexie]

And the repsonse to the local electorate returning conservatives to councils? Labour create quangos and appoint their cronies to run the responsibilities that the councillors have.

Cant wait to get shot of the Stain and his trousers.

[Prentiz]

Isn't it interesting how the BBC choses to use this Government graph without comment. It uses CPI rather than RPI, so that the inflation figures seem much lower. It makes no mention of the dropping levels of Government support to councils (down by over 1/3rd) or about the levels of local Government pay settlement. Another example of the BBC's willingness to uncritically accept Government spin?

[David Cooper]

Don't forget the Single Status liabilities either. All that back pay, rewarding no productive effort but only satisfying the nebulous concept of work of equal value, has to be funded somehow.

[Yet Another Anon]

It uses CPI rather than RPI, so that the inflation figures seem much lower.
cpi is the international measure used, however actually in the case of comparisons with Council Tax levels it would be more favourable to the government if they used RPIX in this chart because then it would show inflation higher relative to Council Tax and make it look as if it actually wasn't going up as much as a comparison with cpi.