Council tax responsible for "soaring living costs"

"The 'remorseless increase' in council tax has caused soaring living costs, the Tories claimed today in a fresh attack on the Government before next month's local government elections.

Labour admitted council tax had gone up a whopping 100 per cent since 1997 - but then defended its record by saying next year's four per cent rise was the lowest for 14 years.

Communities and Local Government Secretary Hazel Blears was forced to defend accusations, during Commons clashes today, that town halls were being forced to foot the bill for central government policies."

See the Mail for more.

Comments

[JAT]

I know that a lot will depend on local circumstances but can the Party (research of local government or whichever department people) produce some sort of "model" of what was done by Hammersmith & Fulham Council in terms of lowering council tax.

What general areas should Conservatives be looking at for savings? Is there any way of safe-guarding standards of service and avoiding the bad publicity associated with "cuts"?

[Deborah]

A very good place to start, not involving any service cuts, would be members allowances.

Guido has a very relevant posting on this:
http://www.order-order.com/
"Councillor Watson Claims £3,723 Per Meeting "

- but this is just one example.

[NigelC]

To check out how much of your money your councillors take home in allowances see:
http://www.lgar.local.gov.uk/lgv/core/page.do?pageId=26788

There is an enormous variation between similar councils; some paying twice the average

[Graeme Pirie]

Council Tax is NOT responsible for soaring costs.

The total taken in council tax is 25 Billion, from a total of over 500 Billion.

Fuel duty is as much as council tax. VAT and NI are both over 3 times council tax.

There's no excuse for increasing council tax, but lets get it in context, we're screwed left right and centre.

It's way beyond time that the tories stuck their heads above the parapet & PROMISED a long term goal of reducing total taxation to below 30% of GDP. It's perfectly possible to provide better services with £400 Billion instead of £500B !!!

[StevenAdams]

Member allowances are populist and ridiculous targets for savings. Counties pay members circa £10,000 per year (circa £600,000 from budgets of circa £1 billion).

I am a 27 year old CC back bencher, I'm a company director, graduate, new home owner and newly engaged. £10k is fine if it's extra cash, sure, but when you spend at least 3 days per week in Co. Hall and it then has to make up a large chunk of your income, you'll find it's a pittance. If you want the best people to be ABLE to stand for council, let alone be fairly remunerated, then you have to pay them.

[NigelC]

Steven,
The councillors commission makes it clear that being a councillor should be compatible with full time employment.
I think we are missing the plot here. We employ officers (civil servants) to run services. Councillors are expected to set strategic direction and scrutinise performance(along with local case work within their ward). Setting strategy and policy should not be time consuming (officers write the papers). Perhaps councillors are getting too involved in day to day activity which is not their role and is time consuming.

I am a councillor and work full time

[NigelC]

Isitfair published the top ten paying councils in 2005/6.
The average member's allowances, including the special responsibility allowances, were:
Croydon £22,143
Islington £21,533
Kent C C £20,921
Kensington & Chelsea £20,843
Birmingham City £20,833
Leeds City £20,040
Southwark £19,538
Tameside 19,011
Lewisham 18,593
not £10,000 per member.

All of these council paid out over £1million to elected members.
Even some district councils are paying out over £500,000.

The summary shows over £191 million is paid to elected members of local authorities, police authorities and fire authorities.

[StevenAdams]

NigelC I also work full-time as a graphic designer/editor, and have to sandwich this work into evenings and between committees (from my laptop).

Frankly, I disagree with you. Policy and Scrutiny SHOULD be time consuming, and officers should only be writing papers once they have worked with members to receive a steer.

When you are jointly responsible for some £1 billion pounds of public money, and areas such as children's safeguarding and care for the elderly, and these services are stretched to breaking point by inadequate funds, I think that the LEAST a councillor can do is to be active and engaged with officers and services. This is not micro-management or bad time management. Frankly, there is so much to be engaged with that I could double the time spent at council if I didn't aggressively filter meeting requests.

All the above stands, and it doesn't even take into account residents/community assoc's, interest groups around local concerns, youth club mgmt committees, school governorships, scout associations, RECs, Fire Authorities etc etc etc etc.

The fact is, being a councillor is enormously time consuming.

Click on my name below, and it'll take you to my website - the front page gives you some idea of the amount of committees and positions I hold (though it's slightly out of date, so you could add two more!). Saying the words "council should be compatible with FT work" is all very well, but that doesn't make it true. One of them has to suffer.