ConservativeHome's Local Government Blog

Cllr Edward Lister: Lessons from Wandsworth for David Cameron

Cllr Edward Lister is Conservative leader of Wandsworth Council.

There’s lessons for David Cameron in this week’s survey results on people’s attitudes to their local authority and the place where they live.

In Wandsworth’s case the Government’s Place Survey gave us approval ratings to die for – top in the country on value for money (73 per cent) and top again for satisfaction with the council (75 per cent).

In London average satisfaction scores fell – down to 49 per cent. So what is Wandsworth doing that is different?

Well we do have the clear advantage of the UK’s lowest council tax – but that’s only one component. When residents are judging us on value for money they are influenced by their overriding perception of what the authority is about.

How was I treated last time I dealt with the town hall? Does the council share my concerns on quality of life issues? And how does it look after the local area?

The Wandsworth formula has been finely tuned over the years. Through a rigorous process of scrutiny and challenge that stretches into every corner of municipal activity we make sure we get the last pound of value from every service.

And like any sound business we don’t just do this once – it is a constant process of review which keeps asking why things are done the way are – and whether they could be done differently.

£78 million uncollected Council Tax in Wales

According to figures collected for the Welsh Assembly, local councils in Wales are owed more than £78 million in unpaid Council Tax. They have only collected 96.4% of the total Council Tax levied in last financial year. Of the 22 councils in Wales, Blaenau Gwent has the lowest collection rate at 94.5% while Pembrokeshire had the highest at 98.3%.

It is generally accepted that the recession is the cause for the falling rate of collection. I would suspect that the higher the rate of Council Tax set the lower the collection rate because the greater the difficulty people would have paying their bills - but I have not seen figures to prove such a correlation.

The Federation of Small Business says Councils are tougher when it comes to collecting the Business Rate.

Offering a discount to those who pay their Council Tax by Direct Debit may well help secure a higher collection rate - as well as reducing collection costs.

Ealing offers £50 Council Tax rebate

Some excellent news this evening, especially if you live in Ealing. Conservative run Ealing Council is offering a £50 Council Tax rebate. Prudent management had already allowed a Council Tax freeze in April - now they are planning to go further and reduce the burden in a bold recession fighting move. The Band D Council Tax in Ealing is high at £1,369.75 but this cut will give encouragement to residents that the finances are heading in the right direction. Cutting the Council Tax in this way will help the poorest the most. It is similar to the initiative in Kensington and Chelsea.

Council leader Cllr Jason Stacey says: "It is important to remember this money belongs to local people so it is only right we give back some money during the recession." Quite right.

Caroline Spelman exposes Labour's council tax overcharging for 700,000 households

The Sun and the Daily Mail are two of the newspapers to cover a great piece of work by Caroline Spelman MP and, I suspect, Sheridan Westlake at CCHQ.

The Daily Mail:

"A million homeowners have paid the wrong council tax for years in a funding scandal ministers tried to cover up. New documents have shown that more than 700,000 households may have been overcharged to the tune of tens of millions. Ministers and officials have known since at least 2005 that many homes were in the wrong tax bands."

Caroline Spelman commented:

"There is clear evidence of a great council tax cover-up. The Government has been caught red-handed fiddling council tax to make families pay more. Labour Ministers know that many homes across the country are wrongly banded, but have refused to correct the tax inspectors’ errors to save money and save face. The whole moral basis of our tax system is undermined if the state conspires to over-charge the public. This just shows that Ministers only want to reform the council tax system if it rakes in extra cash for Gordon Brown’s coffers. The fact that the Welsh council tax revaluation has been riddled with errors shows that a revaluation does more harm that good. I fear that this cover-up will further undermine public trust in politics. Labour Ministers should come clean and simply fix the mistakes in the existing council tax system.”

Tim Montgomerie

Ken Clarke joins plea to Tory Councils to cut Council Tax

The Conservative leadership believe in localism but they clearly also believe in some nudging towards Conservative Councils to do more to reduce spending and thus leave room for Council Tax cuts. After David Cameron's plea reported this morning comes the same message from Shadow Business Secretary Ken Clarke.

In a foreward to a paper on how Conservative Councils are seeking to help their residents cope with the recession, Clarke writes:

I believe it is our duty, parliamentarians and councillors alike, to apply firm financial discipline. This means knowing your costs, ensuring you are getting best value for money on all your contracts (whether these be services orientated or such services as energy and transport) and making sure bureaucracy is lean. It also means focusing on what you have been elected to do and not indulging in whimsical schemes of little public value.

David Cameron promises that Conservative councils will offer more for less

David Cameron has just officially launched the Conservatives' local election campaign in Tynemouth, where there will be a mayoral election in North Tyneside on June 4th, along with county council elections in the shire counties (and two further mayoral contests in Hartlepool and Doncaster).

The thrust of his local election message was that delivering "more for less" is at the heart of what Conservatives believe and that Conservative councils will do everything they can to get council tax down while providing the support families and businesses need to help lift them out of the recession. He emphasised that a Conservative Government would

• freeze council tax for two years by cutting the government advertising budget;
• give local people the power to stop massive council tax rises with referendums;
• through a ‘Right to Know’ plan, make sure every item of local spending is published online.

But the national message of "vote for change" came across even louder. He declared:

"This is your last chance before the general election to tell Gordon Brown what you think of him and his tired, incompetent and failing government - and that will only happen if you vote for change".

"Change in our country will come. And we can make that glorious day of change arrive all the sooner, if on June 4th you give this weak, useless and spineless Government a message it won’t forget. With every Conservative vote, that message will be simple:  Enough is enough. You’re the past. It’s time to go and make way for the only party that has faith in Britain and the British people, that believes our best days lie ahead of us, and has the ideas, plans and policies to deliver them."

Update: Here's how Emma Carr, Conservative Future chairman in the North East of England, has summarised the event for ConservativeHome:

£100 Council Tax rebates for 30,000 Essex residents

Lord Hanningfield, the leader of Essex Council, on a scheme to help the elderly and hard pressed families get through the recession

I am delighted to announce that up to 30,000 households throughout Essex have started, this week, to receive a £100 one-off direct payment to help them through the recession, thanks to a unique initiative from Essex County Council. The scheme is the first of its kind to be launched by a local authority in the country and to be successfully up and running.

Thousands of elderly residents and families with children in receipt of Council Tax Benefit will be eligible to receive the payment, to help them with their Council Tax bills in the current economic climate.

The first batch of payments will be with residents this week, and it is expected that all eligible residents across the county will receive the £100 payment over the coming months.

This unique scheme of helping residents with their Council Tax bills is just one of several ways that Essex County Council is assisting our county during this difficult economic time.

Council Tax goes up four times more than inflation

Figures in the Sunday Telegraph show that since March 1999 Council Tax has gone up by 74.7% - compared to inflation rising by 19.1% over the same period.

It says a threatened revaluation would push bills up even further.

Conservative Councils charge lower Council Tax than Labour and Lib Dems

Analysis of the Council Tax figures has shown that Conservative Councils charge an average Council Tax of £1,144. For Labour it is £1,161 and the Lib Dems £1,231. This is based on Band D Council Tax.  A CCHQ press release states (our emphasis):

"In 2009-10, Conservative councils charge £87 a year less on Band D bills than Liberal Democrat councils and £18 a year less than Labour councils in England (and £34 a year less than Labour in shire areas, which have elections this June). This is despite the Government fiddling the funding formula over a number of years to subsidise inefficient Labour councils."

Labour response has been thoroughly dishonest. They claim to have lower Council Tax lower by £204 on average based on the "average Council Tax per dwelling." No reputable authority would accept that as a valid measure because you have huge fluctuations in property prices between different authorities. The Band D is the like for like comparison.

Were Labour to justify setting a high Council Tax as the right decision one could disagree with them. But at least it would be honest. Their attempts to deny setting higher Council Tax smacks of desperation.

Isn't it also interesting how much higher still the Council Tax set by the Lib Dems is? Does this indicate that the Lib Dems are typically to the Left of Labour at local level?

Spelman praises Scottish Council Tax freeze

Shadow Communities and Local Government Secretary Caroline Spelman says in the Telegraph today: "If Scotland can freeze their Council Tax, England should as well, but Labour Ministers have bluntly refused to help struggling families."

I also welcome the Scottish Council Tax freeze which is a very shrewd move by the Scottish Nationalists. But there are a couple of important caveats. Firstly, as I understand it, George Osborne offers to help Councils in England freeze (or cut) the Council Tax only where they make some real effort themselves to contain costs. Match funding if you like. They had to keep their proposed rise under 2.5% - which was below the inflation rate when he made the announcement last year. Then he would fund the 2.5% to provide a freeze (or a cut if they were proposing a lower than 2.5% increase.)

Alex Salmond gives Scottish Councils a much softer deal.

Another caveat is that Salmond only has only this money to protect Scots from the consequences of their profligate Councils because of English largesse.

By the way the Telegraph talks about varying Council Tax rises as a "postcode lottery" as if they were like the weather. Of course there are arguments about the fairness of central Government grant allocations and Caroline Spelman mentions the shires being worst hit by "fiddled funding." But let nobody assume that what Councils actually do is somehow irrelevant. For instance the explanation for lower Council Tax rises in London on average is because of what particular Councils in London have achieved. There have not been any special Government favours to Bromley, Westminster, Wandsworth, Ealing, Hillingdon, Hounslow, Kensington and Chelsea, Hammersmith and Fulham...Or to Boris Johnson. There has been a determination to save money through cutting wasteful spending and achieving greater efficiency.

Ealing Council Tax freeze confirmed

Confirmation that Ealing is freezing their Council Tax. Band D bills will stay at £1,369.75 (including the frozen Boris precept.)

Councillor David Scott, Cabinet Member for Finance and Performance,
said:

“With the country in recession and many people in the borough facing the prospect of unemployment, our top priority was to help local people as much as possible by freezing Council Tax.”

“The prudent budget we have agreed means we can keep Council Tax the same while continuing to make significant investments in the services our residents rely on.

“In our drive to deliver value for money we have been able to shed millions of pounds in operating costs by making Council departments more efficient.  This has ensured that we are in a strong financial position and have contingencies to cope with any extra pressure on local services as the recession hits.”

Lib Dem Kingston sets the highest Council Tax in London

Cllr Robert-John Tasker reports on last night's budget setting Council meeting in his borough of Kingston.

As I have written for Conservative Home before, my local authority, Kingston council, has the highest council tax in London. This year it will be the second highest rise in London but overall the total bill will still be the largest. However, something struck me last night listening to the leader, Cllr Derek Osbourne, and his colleagues defend the indefensible. Their attitude as with most centralists and pro-high tax politicians is something rather scary and perverse.

They often taunt and ridicule the Conservatives for wanting lower tax either by implementing a freeze or a cut. But why? They, very much like our present Government, are obsessed with a client state. A tax cut in the eyes of Cllr Osbourne and the Liberal Democrats is the equivalent of throwing the disabled into the river. You cannot cut tax because the local community depend on us! The Elderly, health groups, ethnic minorities, charities, etc, are apparently wholly dependent on the man in the Town Hall. Take away the interference from the local politicians and the community is nothing. The Lib Dems went on to add that if Kingston had Hammersmith and Fulham’s central government grant they would cut council tax in a similar fashion. No they would not. It is disingenuous for the Lib Dems to tell people that. Lib Dem-run Islington has a similar grant to H&F yet they have little or no interest in conducting a cut, they philosophically and fundamentally disagree with giving people a break on their rates.

Conwy Council raises Council Tax by 5%

Conwy Council is putting up the Council Tax by 5% - the maximum possible without capping. Although the Conservatives are the largest single group on the Council, they are in opposition to a Lib Dem/Labour/Plaid coalition.

David Jones, the Conservative MP for Clwyd West, says:

“I am very disappointed indeed that the council has seen fit to impose such a large, above-inflation, increase in taxes on the people of Conwy.

“Many residents of Conwy are retired and are living on investment and savings income. Over the last few months, they have seen the return on their savings drop alarmingly. Many of them, now seeing this increase imposed by the council, will wonder how they will be able to pay their way.

“At such a difficult economic time, one would have hoped that the council would make every effort to minimise the hardship suffered by its residents.

“I am pleased that the Conservative group voted against the proposal. They were doing the right thing on behalf of the council taxpayers of this county and I am sorry that Labour and Plaid Cymru failed to follow their lead.”

Fighting for lower tax in South Tyneside

Cllr David Potts, leader of the Conservative opposition on South Tyneside, on how the Labour Council responded to his proposals to freeze Council Tax.

Labour led South Tyneside Council set its budget yesterday and I had been thinking for some time about the Conservative notice of amendment. Just how can we freeze council tax without damaging public services? Then I stumbled across Cllr Harry Phibbs ‘100 ways to cut council tax’.

So, after having had a few meetings with the Head of Finance, I came up with the following ideas to present to my Conservative colleagues who agreed that the proposals were sound. Bear in mind that to freeze
rates we needed to save just over £1.5M. I confess to having nicked a few of Harry’s ideas:

• Everyday a little yellow van turns up at the homes of every councillor and senior executive to deliver council papers and the mail. This costs £64’000 PA. Scrap it, send the data by email and tell councillors to pick up their own mail from the town hall. If they aren’t in the town hall at least one day a week, then they shouldn’t be on the council.
• Cease to employ staff to be trade union representatives (thanks, Harry!). Saving £120’000 PA. Labour really loved that one!
• Abolish ‘ON VIEW’, Labour’s propaganda tool (sorry, I mean the totally impartial council magazine). This would save £80’000.
• Now the big one! South Tyneside Council is the smallest Metropolitan Borough in the Country, yet we still manage to squander a whopping £2.3M PA on printing and photocopying. Slash the budget to £1.0M PA, keep tight control over departmental budgets and tell staff to only print off in exceptional circumstances. Also stop sending junk mail to residents. They don’t read any of it, and they don’t want it. The only thing that should be printed and posted is their (now greatly reduced) council tax bill.

Fighting for lower tax in Norwich

Cllr Antony Little, leader of the Conservative opposition on Norwich Council, has challenged the Labour' Council's high tax policies.

Nobody could envy Council administrations in putting together this year’s budgets in what must be some of the most difficult circumstances for local government in many years.  In Norwich, we were asked to vote to hike council tax, cut local services, diminish our reserves and whilst the issue of blame was flung around the chamber; from Labour with its priorities wrong, the hapless Greens with no economic sense and the LibDems still licking their wounds from previous financial atrocities; we could all agree where this crisis started even if we disagree on what to do now.

Aside from the fact that the overall settlement for the City Council still runs below the growth in inflation, the Labour government still won’t fund council’s adequately for doing the job we are required to perform by law. When the change to licensing laws came in, the City Council was under funded by tens of thousands of pounds for the task of performing a duty we had to do by law.  Now Labour are at it again, with concessionary bus fares.  Taking a popular services that is well used, Labour have created a scheme of funding that is desperately unfair to cities like Norwich.  Nobody here opposes the concessionary bus fare; but we do want fair funding for it.  Labour’s duplicity on this issue leaves us £1.5m adrift and at a time when the council and taxpayers can least afford it.

So we are left with having to hike tax and cut services?  Well that’s what the orthodoxy of the left would have you believe.

How can it be then, that the Conservative Group could have staved off the worst of Labour’s cuts to services, reduce council tax – and without raiding reserves?  Simple; the belts at City Hall just weren’t
tight enough and we put the financial pain at the feet of the politicians rather than the feet of the residents.

The Conservatives in Norwich proposed removing £96,500 of the worst of Labour’s cuts and also reducing council tax by 1%; all by identifying extra savings that could have been made at City Hall – including:

• Reducing councillors allowances by £10,000 – done by cutting the size of the Executive from 8 to 6 (we are a council of 39 members – do we really need 8 highly paid top councillors?)
• Cutting all-but-essential postage to Councillors, saving £2000 – obviously agenda papers that are time limited should be posted by why should tax payers fork out to post “Cllr” magazine to me when I go into City Hall 3 or 4 times a week myself?
• Cancelling newspaper subscriptions, saving £4,000 – most news stories are on the net.  Why can we not get the information for free in this way?  OK, maybe the Comms team need a copy – but everyone else can go online.
• Remove the political assistants, saving £57,000 – unbelievably one Green Councillor said he needed his political assistant to help him cope with his casework.  What rubbish – we are paid allowances, so do the work yourself!  Why should taxpayers fork out for councillors allowances and then political assistants to do our jobs on top of that?  That Green Cllr is their Euro-candidate so presumably all his campaigning up and down the region is why he cannot spare the time to work for his residents.
• The unitary budget should be cut by £200,000 – Norwich City Council has spent enough on this giant white elephant.  We nearly spend more than the County Council who are the lead authority for the preferred bid.  People are fed up with services being cut whilst bureaucracy flourishes.

Westminster Council freezes the Council Tax

Westminster Council is freezing its Council Tax for the coming financial year. With a Band D charge of £377.80 for Westminster plus £309.82 for the Mayor of London's precept it will be just fractionally ahead of Wandsworth who have the lowest Council Tax in the Britain.

Westminster Council is currently undergoing a major restructure and is carrying out a thorough review of its three year business plan. Less money will be spent on administration and more on frontline services - where it makes the biggest difference.

By 2012 the council will employ up to 400 fewer people to ensure that the council can continue to deliver value for money services. Out of this figure, the council expects to employ 100 fewer managers, most of whom will go through natural turnover. Other measures include reducing the levels of temporary staff, flexible contractors, voluntary redundancies and fewer contractors. This is set to save the council at least £30m over the next three years.

More London Councils freeze Council Tax

Following news of Wandsworth's Council Tax freeze, Cllr Phil Taylor reports that Ealing is freezing its Council Tax this year. By keeping their Council Tax rises below inflation in recent years their bills have already fallen from 23rd to 18th lowest out of the 33 London boroughs. Hillingdon is also freezing bills this year.

But Merton is putting up the Council tax by 1.9%. They say this is the lowest hike for 15 years. I would have thought all the more reason there should have been some fat they could find to trim.

This year the Band D Council Tax (excluding the Mayor of London's levy) is £1,091.49 in Merton. In Ealing it is £1,040.22. In Hillingdon it is £1,112.93. So according to my maths after their increase Merton will be 70p a year cheaper than Hillingdon.

Caroline Spelman slams inflation-busting council tax rises in England

Caroline Spelman, the shadow communities and local government secretary, has pounced upon Local Government Association figures forecasting that council tax bills will rise on average by £41 a year as of April.

The LGA states that an average Band D home in England will now have council tax of £1,414 a year, whereas local taxpayers in Scotland - where those in an average Band D home will pay £1,149 - will enjoy a council tax freeze this year.

Mrs Spelman reports that with RPI Inflation for 2009-10 to be running at minus 2¼%, the real terms increase in council tax will be over 5% and that over the period Labour have been in government, English council tax bills will have risen by an extra £733 a year. She added:

"Taxpayers are already feeling the pain of council tax having doubled under Labour. Now council tax bills are to rise by a further £41 this April, at a time when people are losing their jobs or being hit with pay freezes. The average bill will now hit almost £120 a month on a Band D home in England. By contrast, residents in Scotland will benefit from another council tax freeze this year. Conservatives would work with councils to freeze council tax, bringing real help to recession-hit England."

Wandsworth sets the lowest Council Tax in Britain

Wandsworth Council already sets the lowest Council Tax in Britain and is freezing this year's bills. Here their leader Cllr Edward Lister says they could do even better without he "dead weight" of the Brown Government.

When times are hard the best bit of news residents can hear from their local authority is that they are not going to be hit in the pocket with unaffordable council tax demands.

For Conservative councils, getting it right can be a very simple way of demonstrating the difference between efficient local administrations and a wasteful, under-performing government.

Wandsworth Conservatives have just announced budget proposals which will ensure the tax in our borough remains the UK’s lowest.

We are freezing our bills for the second year running – and with Boris breaking with Mayoral convention and also keeping the lid on spending – there’s a real Conservative message here for voters.

While Wandsworth has Council Tax freeze

Wandsworth Council is freezing its Council Tax bills this year. Their share of the Band D bill will remain £372. As the Mayor of London's precept of £310 will also be frozen this year that means the total Council Tax bill will remain £682.

So Wandsworth is set to remain the Council with the lowest tax burden in Britain. Their leader Cllr Edward Lister will explain more in an article for Conservative Home appearing tomorrow.

Conservative-led Birmingham keeps Council Tax rise below inflation

Relatively good news for Birmingham residents, who once again see a below-inflation Council Tax increase of just 1.9 per cent, for the fourth year running, 1.2 per cent below the latest Consumer Prices Index. Birmingham is a Conservative led Council but without an overall majority so the administration also includes Lib Dems. Thus keeping down the Council Tax is more of an achievement given these constraints.

The rise for 2009/10 is expected to be one of the lowest proposed by any local authority in the country, and is thought to be amongst the lowest in the entire West Midlands. Furthermore, Birmingham City Council is now expected to have achieved the lowest average council tax increase of all the Metropolitan Districts over the past four years.

Despite keeping the Council Tax increase below inflation the budget provides an extra £21.8million for key priorities such as plans for a new Library of Birmingham. This year's Band D Council Tax in Birmingham is £1,071.

1.9% Council Tax increase in Windsor & Maidenhead

Cllr David Burbage, leader of Windsor & Maidenhead Council, says by increasing the Council Tax by less than inflation again he expects this year to have the lowest Band D rate outside London.

There are six Berkshire Unitary authorities – no county council – and as such we are more masters of our taxpayers' destiny than many other authorities, despite being relatively poorly funded by central Government.

By looking carefully at lots of small savings (and we have spent many meetings doing just that) and also by being firm on the need to achieve a low tax settlement in the current economic climate, and because we believe in lower taxation in principle, a low tax settlement is what we have got.

When we took over in 2007 the previous LibDem Council's financial strategy was to raise Council Tax by just under the capping level and they also said that "it is important that it [Council Tax] is used to generate the maximum amount of income possible".

Our approach has been the opposite – to aim to cut taxes, not increase them, without cuts to services. The benchmark September RPI which uplifts pensions and benefits was 5%. Our 1.9% , which should also bring us to be the lowest Band D rate in the country outside of a few London boroughs, is a 3.1% cut in real terms against that figure.

Lincoln plans closing Tourist Information Centres

Conservative-run Lincoln Council is considering closing two Tourist Information Centres in the City. The suggestion is that these days fewer people are using such Centres as they rely more on the internet. The Council is looking at other ways to promote tourism which they believe would be more cost effective. Are they right? I presume they will have carried out some sort of review of how many people visit the centres.

Closing the centres is part of plan to reduce the Council's budget by £2.5 million.

More reaction for Council Tax cuts list.

My list last Friday of "100 ways to cut the Council Tax without cutting key services" continues to make waves. It has been welcomed by the Taxpayers Alliance and the Adam Smith Institute. The Daily Mail reproduced the entire list.

But not everybody is happy. I have already mentioned Sir Jeremy Beecham. He has another go on Derek Draper's Labour List. A very muddled response - for instance equating placing more children for adoption with "cuts to services to Looked After Children." But with a generalised misrepesentation he leaves us to guess which items he disagrees with. Still, at least he has now read it. Maybe. They also have a piece from someone called James Alexander which provoked lots of comments - mostly supportive of my list.

At least Labour List included links to the original piece so their readers could judge for themselves. No so the Daily Mirror which ran an account this morning that was so distorted as to be farcical. I knew something was in the offing as I had a call yesterday. "It's Bob Roberts, the Political Editor of the Daily Mirror," he told me grandly. Perhaps I would have been more impressed if it hadn't been that his "scoop" yesterday that the Tories planned to "get rid" of Regional Development Agencies had just been proved false. If only it had been true. Odd given that assures readers he had been told by "senior Tory sources." Perhaps he had better get some better ones or people might think he could just as well be relying on voices in his head.

Denounced by Sir Jeremy Beecham

Sir Jeremy Beecham, leader of the Labour Group on the Local Government Association, and Cllr Richard Kemp, leader of the Lib Dems on the LGA, have joined forces to denounce the list I wrote on Friday of "100 ways to cut Council Tax without cutting key services." While Cllr Beecham called it "a vicious attack on the most vulnerable in our communities" by contrast Cllr Kemp called it a "nasty attack on the most vulnerable in our communities."

I don't suppose either of them read the list before putting their names to the imaginative quotes drafted for them by their LGA Press Officers. Had they done so they would have seen that many items on the list included greater help for the most vulnerable. They might also have paused to reflect that many vulnerable people struggle to pay extortionate Council Tax bills.

If they had read the list they might also have indicated which items they disagreed with. Of course the list was my own. Some suggestions were inspired by savings that had been achieved by own my own Council, some by other councils. Are Labour and Lib Dems denouncing the whole list? If so do they have an alternative list or do they not regard value for money as a worthy objective.

Mark Wallace: We need a better system for funding the police

Mark Wallace of The TaxPayers' Alliance cites the recent experience of Lincolnshire - where the police are at the bottom of the national funding league - to support his case.

The troublesome issue of police precepts has reared its head again this week. Most of the time, council tax is simply discussed as one lump sum, and the responsibility for its level is placed at the door of the local authority alone. It’s often forgotten that in that total is a slice for policing, as well as a slice for the fire service, set by their respective authorities.

Policing is one of the highest priorities amongst the public, so it is strange that we still have such an arcane and unaccountable system for raising funds for it. That system frustrates the public, who feel disenfranchised and powerless when it comes to demanding more and better policing, and the police themselves, who have to play a bizarre game to try to get more funds.

More than anywhere else, it is in Lincolnshire that the police precept has become an issue. By freak of history and the complexities of the calculations carried out in the Home Office to determine funding, Lincolnshire Constabulary receive the lowest amount of funding per head of population of any police force. As their Chief Constable concedes, someone has to be bottom of the funding table, but they feel that they are underfunded, arguing that the Home Office’s equations fail to provide for Lincolnshire’s population patterns properly.

It is at this point that the current funding system starts to get in the way. Instead of being able to go to the people directly with their case for more money, the Police Authority have to play a weird game of PR cat and mouse with the Government.

Most Scottish Councils freeze Council Tax

Most Scottish Councils are freezing the Council Tax for a second year running. This is being achieved not them being frugal but due to a funding deal with the SNP administration in Holyrood. The Scottish Government compensates Councils freezing the Council Tax from a £70 million. In view of this it seems reasonable that the Scottish Conservatives backed the SNP budget. It's the sort of thing George Osborne is proposing for England and Wales, although his scheme would be more of a joint effort with the Councils obliged to show rather more restraint. I don't think scuppering a Council Tax freeze would have advanced the unionist cause.

22 out of Scotland's 32 Councils have so far agreed to a freeze. They include Edinburgh - although my old friend Brian Montieth believes its not good enough.

100 ways to cut the Council Tax without cutting key services

Let me count the ways. Please do add your own ideas.

1. Freeze recruitment.

2. Scrap political advisers.

3. Cut the number of press officers. One rule would be to make sure you have no more than the number of local newspaper reporters. An alternative idea would be to get rid of the press office altogether. Why not just put journalists through to the Leader's secretary who gives them the number for the relevant councillor?

4. Scrap the council newspaper. Unless, as in the case of my Council, you make it self financing through real, private sector, advertising.

5. Cut the number of Scrutiny Coordinators. One full time person to organise all the scrutiny meetings should be enough.

6. Cut the number of coordinators for assorted other committees and panels.

7. Place more children for adoption. Reducing the number of Looked After children by placing more of them in permanent loving homes is principally good news for them. But it is also good news for the Council Taxpayer. Social workers are often risk averse about adoption but it  overwhelmingly offers better life chances than keeping children in care. What is your performance as measured by the number of Looked After Children per 10,000 children in your area? What are the barriers to adoption caused by avoidable bureaucratic delay or politically correct prejudices?

8. For those children who remain in care, where possible send them to boarding schools.

9. Where children remain in care, keep to a minimum sending them to institutional children's home, but place them for fostering in family homes. This is much better for the children. Also even the specialist, highly paid foster carers who can cope with "challenging" children are far less costly than the phenomenally expensive children's homes.

10. Cut any subsidies to private landlords.

Nottingham Council axes 350 jobs

Labour-run Nottingham Council is axing up to 350 jobs. Good for them, I suppose, depending rather a lot on which particular jobs they axe. But it is difficult to be too enthusiastic. Their Band D Council Tax this April will be going up above inflation to staggering £1,463.21. Part of the reason for their financial difficulties is their huge investment in Iceandic banks. Furthermore while the sun was shining far from fixing the roof they were happy enough to splurge out on non-jobs, for instance advertising for ten posts at once for their Welfare Rights Department.

Kensington & Chelsea cuts Council Tax with "£50 efficiency dividend"

Kensington and Chelsea Council has effectively abandoned plans for a 3.2% Council Tax increase in April and will instead be introducing a cut. They are doing this in the form of a one off £50 "efficiency dividend" so in percentage terms the level of cut will vary but equates to 5.7% for a single person in Band D. For the wealthiest it equates to a freeze.

About 5600 elderly who get Council Tax benefit but will get a cheque for £50 in April.

Cllr Merrick Cockell, the Leader of the Council, said:

"The Council sets the fifth lowest Council Tax in the country.  It has also delivered greater efficiency year on year so we can now afford additional help for residents in these tough times.