Young people leaving the care system in East Devon are to be granted a council tax exemption after councillors voted in favour of the move.

Bradley Gerrard, local democracy reporter www.radioexe.co.uk 

The policy, which has been retrospectively implemented from the start of October, will mean youngsters leaving care at 18 will get a discount of up to 100 per cent until their 25th birthday.

East Devon District Council’s cabinet waved through the proposal, which will support those individuals who have been under the care of Devon County Council but live in East Devon.

Other Devon districts operate similar schemes, and efforts have been made in recent months by the Devon District Forum, which comprises council leaders, to develop a consistent approach across the county.

East Devon’s cabinet meeting this week heard the policy would impact just 15 people right now, with the cost for the remainder of this financial year being £7,000 to £8,000. This would rise to £15,000 for a full year, provided the policy continued to apply to just 15 individuals.

Councillor Marianne Rixson (Lib Dem, Sidmouth Sidford) called the policy a “no brainer”

She said: “Fortunately, very few people are affected [by this policy] but it is a huge undertaking for those adjusting to life outside the care system, so I fully support this move,” she said.

Offering his vote of support, Councillor Olly Davey (Green Party, Exmouth Town) said the policy is “a simple thing we can do to help these young people.”

A report for councillors suggested the cost could be reduced in future if it was implemented through the Local Council Tax Reduction (CTR) Scheme.

Such a move would mean the support is funded through a scheme that receives all of Devon’s districts’ collected council tax, not solely through East Devon coffers as is the case now.

However, the report acknowledged that unlike care-leavers’ support,  CTR is a means-based scheme and any changes to its it would need to be put to public consultation, which would take time.
 

Rishi Sunak’s wife Akshata Murty has now earned more than the combined parliamentary salaries of all Labour MPs in 2023 as she is poised to collect another £6.8 million dividend.

Simon Hunt www.standard.co.uk 

Murty, who has a stake in family-owned tech firm Infosys worth just over half a billion pounds, is set to receive the cash after the firm today announced a 18 rupee (17p) dividend to shareholders following a year of strong growth.

The fresh payout takes her total dividend income for the year to £13.5 million after she collected a seven-figure dividend in April. MPs are paid a parliamentary salary of £86,584, amounting to a combined wage bill of £12.8 million for Labour’s 197 MPs at this point in the calendar year.

The top rate of dividend tax, at 39.35%, is lower than that for income tax. In October last year Chancellor Jeremy Hunt cancelled a proposed 1.25% reduction on dividend tax rates.

Murty’s wealth has come under the spotlight since her husband Rishi Sunak first ran to be leader of the Conservative Party in July last year, and was earlier this year the subject of an attack ad run by the Labour party.

The advert, which concentrates on her non-dom tax status, asks: “Do you think it’s right to raise taxes for working people when your family benefited from a tax loophole? Rishi Sunak does.”

Murty last year renounced her non-dom status, which gave her preferential tax treatment on income earned outside the UK, after it appeared to jeopardise Sunak’s chances at becoming party leader. The abolition of non-dom tax breaks would raise more than £3 billion in additional government revenues per year, according to a study by the London School of Economics.

Akshata’s father Narayana Murty founded Infosys, which provides IT outsourcing services, in 1981. It has since grown to have a market cap of £59 billion, giving him a wealth of $4.4 billion (£3.6 billion) according to Forbes.

Infosys today said it delivered £3.8 billion in revenues in the quarter to the end of September, up 6.7% on the previous year, while profits rose 3.2% to top £600 million. But the firm cut its sales forecast for the rest of the year in signs its customers were paring back spending on software and IT.

Murty and Sunak, who married in 2009, own a string of luxury properties worth an estimated £15 million, from a Pacific Ocean facing penthouse apartment in celebrity enclave Santa Monica, to a rambling Georgian manor house in North Yorkshire.

In London, they own two properties including a five-bedroom mews house in Kensington and pied-à-terre apartment in South Kensington’s Old Brompton Road.

Not car park charges, Simon, that are a significant factor, along with online /out of town shopping, in killing off the high street.

Strange timing to return to this old canard just as EDDC reduces car parking for the winter.

Surely there is something more positive you could be doing such as lobbying for a reversal of the Tory funding cuts imposed on councils? That might be a better way of achieving your aim than continually whinging. – Owl

From Simon Jupp’s facebook page