Taxing Times

In his first post for this site Mark Wallace of the Taxpayers Alliance looks back at a tumultous fortnight for local government - and exposes a £322,565 PR bill by Lambeth Council to relaunch their Council housing.

It would be a vast understatement to say the last couple of weeks have been a turbulent time in the local government finance debate. What with the news breaking of potentially massive losses for council taxpayers in the Icelandic bank fiasco, it seems an age ago that George Osborne laid out his proposals for a freeze in council tax in his speech in Birmingham.

The two issues – the Osborne tax freeze and the Icelandic bank disaster – are not unrelated. In fact, both have shone a spotlight on that crucial question: how can councils save money?

Osborne’s proposals combine large savings in Whitehall and restraint in spending at Town Hall level, and offer the prospect of at least some welcome relief from the continual rise in council tax. Obviously, a tax cut would be even better but a freeze is still far preferable to the recent interminable series of rises that have been the main feature of most councils’ tax policies for years. Finally a politician has openly recognised that local authority savings can be made.

Sadly, sixteen London Boroughs and a scattering of other authorities across the country immediately came out against the proposal, saying spending restraint was impossible. It was an unedifying display of the lack of initiative and kneejerk big government attitude that still infests so many council chambers, to the detriment of taxpayers.