Category Archives: Council tax

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

7 Dec 2019

Posted under

Accountability, Asset sweating, Council tax, EDDC, Local Government Finance

“Boom in council ‘stealth’ taxes for waste removal and funeral services”

“Families have been hit by a huge rise in local “stealth” taxes over the past decade as councils introduce garden and bulky waste removal charges and raise the cost of funeral services, pest control and even public lavatories.

Analysis by The Times of council accounts shows that revenue from environmental, regulatory and planning charges has increased by almost 50 per cent to £2.3 billion since 2009.

Last year, revenue from these charges increased by more than two and a half times the rate of inflation as councils scrambled to raise cash after ten years of austerity. This means every home in England is now paying an average of more than £100 a year in council charges on top of their average council tax bill of £1,671.”

Source: Times (pay wall)

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

26 Nov 2019

Posted under

Accountability, Asset sweating, Ben Ingham, Car park charges, Council tax, EDDC, TiggerTories

EDDC had record income from parking at time Leader wanted to increase charges

Motorists all over East Devon are paying for refuse collection, council tax payers throughout East Devon will pay extra if there is no hotel in Exmouth … where will it end?

“The 2018/19 figures from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government show a record return for the council since comparable records began in 2008/9.

A consultation has been carried out, by the council, on plans to raise hourly parking charges from £1 to £1.20. The leader of the council, Ben Ingham, has said any increases will not come into force until 2021.

A spokesman for East Devon District Council said: “East Devon District Council owns 57 car parks that currently contribute around £2.4million which is used to provide a range of essential council services including, for example, our recycling and refuse collection contract. …”

https://www.midweekherald.co.uk/news/record-high-parking-profits-for-district-council-1-6395226

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

7 May 2019

Posted under

Accountability, Council tax, EDDC, Independent Councillors, Local Government Finance

Comments

1 Comment

“For England’s new councillors, the reality of life in our boroughs will hit hard”

“Optimism will be short-lived among the 1,560-plus new councillors – Liberal Democrats, independents, Greens – elected last week in the cities and shires of England, where countless councils changed hands.

These newcomers may have worthy ambitions to transform their councils. But reality kicked in on Tuesday. Entering town halls for briefings, one issue became clear: there’s barely any money left to fund even adult and children’s care, which swallows the majority of cash – let alone keep the rapidly shrinking library service running, the leisure and swimming pool afloat, parks and highways maintained.

Countless warnings from respected organisations, notably the government’s own spending watchdog, have gone unheeded by the government. Last year, the National Audit Office cautioned that council financing is unsustainable and that 10% of the larger councils could have exhausted their reserves – which prop up social care – within three years.

It gets worse. The Commons public accounts committee said recently that the government is in denial about a crisis in which councils are overspending alarmingly on social care, while some are courting “greater risks” through property speculation. …

How did we land in this mess? Look no further than George Osborne, the former chancellor, whose parting gift was a wheeze to make English councils almost self-sufficient by slashing central government grants while handing back control of most business rates. Until Osborne’s intervention, rates had been collected centrally, then redistributed relatively equitably, since 1993.

In 2016, the government initiated a “fair funding review” to work out how Osborne’s reforms might be implemented – and it’s turning out to be anything but fair. Why? Because ministers are taking little account of need and deprivation in poorer areas, with a £7.8bn funding gap emerging overall in council finances. Up to now, these areas have been compensated to take account of low tax bases because they have few expensive houses which deliver higher council tax receipts. Furthermore, business rates from run-down high streets generate a pittance in poorer areas compared with thriving city centres in London and elsewhere. No matter: for this lot, inequity is compounding denial.

Something has to give in a system where almost 60% of council spending now goes on adult and children’s social care – although, overall, social care spending is still falling. Everyone in Whitehall and town halls knows that the social care system is in freefall. A review of how it should be funded – locally, or nationally – is promised. So why introduce a new funding system for local government while its largest single service is awaiting a review?

True, some councils – sometimes smaller districts, with no social care responsibility – are plugging gaps in their finances by morphing into de facto property developers, borrowing heavily to buy shopping and office centres to deliver an annual income. In 2017-18 alone, councils spent £4bn on commercial property, in spite of NAO warnings that finances could be “strained” in the event of a downturn.

But radical action is needed. Rob Whiteman, head of the public sector accountants body Cipfa, argues that authorities should have the power to set council tax rates locally, based on up-to-date property values. His call should not go unheeded.”

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/may/07/england-councillors-cuts-funding-system-poorest-areas?

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

30 Apr 2019

Posted under

Accountability, Austerity cuts, Council tax, Developers/ Development, East Devon Tories, EDDC, Estate rentcharges, Housing (local), Public Open Space, Voting

A correspondent explains why he won’t be voting Conservative on Thursday

“Unless your readers live in a new house on an estate they will have little understanding of what happens today.

I moved onto a new estate which had a grassed open area. I was aware that there was some infrastructure to prevent flooding beneath it and knew that I would have to pay a share of the upkeep. I did not fully understand was that it was a public open space which was available for anyone’s use, not just the residents on the estate.

Maintenance charges have rocketed whilst quality of service has been poor. Any talk of with holding service charge payments is referred promptly to debt recovery. The whole system is unregulated and frankly, stinks.

I have dug deep to try to understand how a simple purchase of a freehold house is suddenly caught up in a land charge where I am compelled to pay for maintenance of land owned by someone else.

The root cause of the problem seems to have started with the council. In this case EDDC. As part of the planning condition for the estate the developer had to provide a public open space and a SUDS system to prevent flooding. In all probability it was an attempt by the council to stick their fingers up at the developers and force them to provide facilities for public benefit at no cost to the local authority.

The next stage was to make the developers responsible for the maintenance of the new open spaces. They could either do that themselves or pay a lump sum to the council to maintain it for the next 25years. Clearly the developers were unable to afford that so they passed the maintenance charges on to the residents within the title deeds for each house.

That was very unpopular and most developers, wanting to distance themselves from the problem, gave the piece of public land to a land management company. It seems that none of those companies are regulated and can charge what they like. If you don’t pay their bill they could apparently seize your house. All quite outrageous.

There has been lots of bad press about these land management companies and the matter discussed in Whitehall although the housing minister has taken little interest.

In East Devon our Conservative council has decided to stick their nose in the trough and has decided to offer to take over the public open spaces at Cranbrook and offer to carry out the maintenance of the public open spaces and charge F band houses £370 per annum and H band houses £512 per annum. Both of those figures are in addition to the normal council tax which is supposed to cover supply and maintenance of public open spaces !!

So lets look at this…. EDDC created the problem by insisting that the developer provide the public open spaces which the council had no intention of maintaining. When it all starts to go wrong EDDC offer to take the responsibility over but only by penalising the residents who live on those estates.

To make it clear those public open spaces are available for use by anyone. So maintenance of those public open spaces should be maintained at public expense. The costs must be paid out of council tax revenue.

This mess has been created by EDDC who enjoy a massive Conservative majority. Any proposals are just nodded through without opposition.

I have always voted Conservative in the past but things have got out of hand. Things must change. The public has a chance to voice their opinion in the local elections on 2nd May.

I know I won’t be for any Conservative Councillor and no, it’s got nothing to to with Brexit….”

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

1 Mar 2019

Posted under

Accountability, Council tax, East Devon Tories, EDDC, Hugo Swire, Neil Parish, Police (local)

“Demand made for more police in East Devon after council tax hike”

Owl cannot understand how East Devon Tory councillors, who have voted time and time again for austerity, who have preened themselves for having one of the lowest council tax rates in the country, and instituted savage cuts can act surprised when they get less for more!

And don’t forget every time there is a vote in Parliament to cut anything – our two MPs vote for those same cuts – unless they affect their salaries or tax breaks for the rich or farming, of course in which case they fight tooth and nail for them!

“Give us more police’, East Devon councillors have demanded, to help tackle increasing incidents of disorder in the region.

Wednesday night’s full council meeting saw councillors agreed to write to the Chief Constable for Devon and Cornwall Police to recognise the needs of East Devon when deciding how to allocate extra resources after the council tax rise will enable 85 new officers to be recruited.

Councillors demanded that extra police be provided to the region, particularly in light of the number of PCSOs being cut from the current 196 to 150.

It comes after the Police and Crime Panel chose not to exercise their veto on Alison Hernandez’s proposals that would see council tax rise for £24 a year for the average Band D council tax payer.

Cllr Tom Wright, who proposed the motion, said that over the last two years, the increase on tax payers is 20 per cent, so residents should expect to see a significant improvement in the service.

“As East Devon residents are the biggest contributors to the police budget in Devon, other than Plymouth, it is only fair that we should get a fair share of the larger cake.

“The increase for this year that the police are getting from us is an extra £1.5m and for that we should get more police on the streets.”

Cllr Alan Dent added: “PCSOs can nip in the bud problems that can arise.”

He gave the example of a problem of people coming from North Devon to Budleigh Salterton to do wheelies in the car park.

Cllr Dent said: “They were zooming around across the car park. I got cross and took pictures of them. They gave me an earful, but I gave the pictures to our PCSOS, and in 24 hours it was dealt with and we never saw them again.”

He said that there was another incident where garden furniture was stolen from a show house. Cllr Dent again took photographs of the perpetrators, gave them to the PCSO, who said ‘I know who they are and will have a word with their parents.’

“That is the value of PCSOs and why we need them in the community,” he added.

Cllr Brian Bailey said that PCSOs stop people going down into the depth of drink and drugs. He added: “Extra funding mean officers can go into schools and educate people and get them on the right track.”

He said that there was another incident where garden furniture was stolen from a show house. Cllr Dent again took photographs of the perpetrators, gave them to the PCSO, who said ‘I know who they are and will have a word with their parents.’

“That is the value of PCSOs and why we need them in the community,” he added.

Cllr Brian Bailey said that PCSOs stop people going down into the depth of drink and drugs. He added: “Extra funding mean officers can go into schools and educate people and get them on the right track.”

And Cllr Eileen Wragg said that extra police would help tackle the ‘proliferation in drug use in Exmouth which is harming our youngsters, and has even resulted in the death of some of them’.

The motion, calling for the chief constable to recognise the needs of East Devon when deciding how to allocate extra resources, received almost unanimous support from the council, with only Cllr Megan Armstrong abstaining.”

https://www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/demand-made-more-police-east-2599799

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

24 Feb 2019

Posted under

Accountability, Council tax, Cranbrook, E.on district heating Cranbrook, EDDC

Comments

1 Comment

Sunday Times: “Council stings residents of Cranbrook for ‘new town tax’ of £370 a year”

Owl says: they don’t mention the district heating system – which keeps residents tied to one supplier – E.on – for 80 (yes EIGHTY years)!

“Local authorities and developers are charging for supplying services in new towns that are free to other homeowners.

Residents of a new town in Devon are being charged an extra £370 a year in council tax in a practice — already being called “the new town tax” — that could spread across the country.

Cranbrook, a new town to the east of Exeter, is charging band F properties a £370 surcharge, rising to £512 for band H properties. Residents receive no more services than people elsewhere in Devon.

Mark Williams, chief executive of East Devon district council, said: “It is very likely that other towns not just in East Devon but elsewhere will have to adopt a similar approach if they wish to maintain their local assets or facilities.

“We believe that the approach adopted by Cranbrook town council is likely to be replicated across the country, especially in areas where there are areas of significant new housing.”

Cranbrook, whose population will eventually exceed 25,000 people, was managed by developers who levied an “estate rent charge” on residents.

The charge was a contribution for the upkeep of facilities such as landscaped gardens and bin collections. When the town council took over responsibility for the services, it kept most of the charge as an addition to the council tax.

Activist groups have sprung up to help residents nationally who have moved into new homes only to discover they are at the mercy of developers on service costs for green spaces or parking. Developers can levy fees because local authorities are not obliged to “adopt” new housing and provide the services.

Cathy Priestley of Homeowners Rights Network, a pressure group, has been contacted by people from 457 new estates housing 86,000 residents with fees ranging from £100 to more than £700 a year. The developers include Bovis, Linden, Persimmon, Redrow and Taylor Wimpey.

She said: “Buyers are lumbered with hidden estate taxes no matter who collects them or who is to blame for this set-up. Stop the rot! Adopt the lot!”

The prospect of permanent higher council taxes for buyers of homes on greenfield sites will be controversial. The government is supporting a housebuilding drive intended to benefit younger people and the “squeezed middle”.

Kevin Blakey, chairman of Cranbrook council, justified the council tax surcharge by saying a lot of people “simply couldn’t afford” to pay the developer’s flat-rate service charge “and the collection rates were going to be pretty awful”.

He added: “There are no council houses but 40% of the first phase of development was given over to social housing managed by housing associations. These charges [were] being applied to people in East Devon who are probably least able to afford it.”

Blakey said that even though the town council would provide services more efficiently than the developers, the charges reflected the cost of maintaining trees and green spaces, including a country park, insisted on by the district council. The residents have to meet the costs even though it is open to everyone. “Our arguments have fallen on deaf ears,” he said.

Williams said: “There are no rules. The government has allowed developers to pass their obligations directly onto new home owners and the ability to remedy the situation lies with the government. This is a national issue.”

Source: Sunday Times (paywall)

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

1 Feb 2019

Posted under

Accountability, Austerity cuts, Council tax, Inequality, Poverty, Universal Credit

“Local authorities forced to cut council tax support sees surge in unpaid tax bills” (well, duh!)

“Around 90% of English councils have been forced cut council tax support for working age claimants, meaning many low-income households have fallen behind with their council tax bills, according to new research.

A report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has highlighted the impact of the government’s decision to abolish the centralised council tax support (CTS) for low-income households in 2013, which has seen an extra 1.3 million working-age households sent a council tax bill.

Nearly five million households received localised tax support in 2017-18, costing local authorities a total of £4.1bn – and 2.4 million working-age people received support, with an average benefit of £770 per year.
But the IFS has estimated that councils have failed to collect one-quarter of the extra council tax that low-income households have been billed as a result of the funding cuts.

This explosion of unpaid council tax is around 10 times higher than the 2.5% of council tax uncollected by local authorities under the old CTS system.

CTS schemes have also continued to become less generous since they have suffered funding cuts and were brought under local council control – and the report reveals that low-income households in poor parts of England are more likely to have been affected than those in affluent areas.

Director of welfare at the Nuffield Foundation, Mark Franks, said: “The fact that local authorities are unable to collect around one quarter of the additional council tax they have asked for indicates that support schemes are not working as effectively as they could.

“This important research should help in reviewing the design of council tax support schemes and the benchmarks they are based on.”

The report stated that giving people an entirely new bill is what seems so problematic with this type of tax collection.

Thomas Pope, one of the authors of the report and an IFS researcher, commented: “Many low-income households do not pay this new bill, almost regardless of its size. From their point of view, these changes have clearly increased problems with council tax arrears.

“From councils’ point of view, they are likely to receive significantly more council tax if they increase bills for those already paying some council tax than if they try to raise the same extra money from those who currently have no bill to pay.”

http://www.publicsectorexecutive.com/Public-Sector-News/local-authorities-forced-to-cut-council-tax-support-sees-surge-in-unpaid-tax-bills

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

1 Feb 2019

Posted under

Accountability, Audit (EDDC), Austerity cuts, Council tax, Local Government Finance

Bankrupt Tory council gets special treatment and audit bill balloons

Owl wonders how it would have been treated if it had not been a Tory council …

Its audit bill has ballooned:

“In its final audit report released this week, auditor KPMG said delays have been caused by the slow and patchy provision of information by the council and departures of key staff at the authority.

The extra work caused by the delays would more than quadruple its original fee of £71,250, it said.

The report said: “We stated during the audit committee on 26 November 2018 that this had now risen, at that date, to approximately £300,000 in total (i.e. including original scale fee).”

http://www.room151.co.uk/funding/delays-cause-northampton-audit-bill-to-balloon/

and

It is being allowed to raise an extra 2% on council tax without the (legal) need to hold a referendum:

“The council had already proposed raising council tax by 2.99%, the maximum amount it could do before holding a local vote.

The final settlement stated: “For 2019-20, the relevant basic amount of council tax of Northamptonshire County Council is excessive if the authority’s relevant basic amount of council tax for 2019-20 is 5% or more than 5% greater than its relevant basic amount of council tax for 2018-19”. …

When classified as “excessive”, a local authority must hold a referendum on its proposed tax hike.

In November, in a bending of the rules by the government, Northamptonshire was given permission to use £70m of capital receipts to help balance its budget.

The final statement otherwise largely confirmed what was contained in the earlier provisional settlement in December, with core spending power rising by 2.8% in cash terms from £45.1bn in 2018-19 to £46.4bn in 2019-20.

In real terms this is almost a freeze.”

http://www.room151.co.uk/funding/northamptonshire-thrown-a-lifeline-again/

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

9 Oct 2018

Posted under

Affordable and Social Housing, Council tax, Housing (local), Inequality

Comments

1 Comment

Council tax, stamp duty or a home value tax?

“COUNCIL tax and stamp duty should be scrapped and replaced by a new annual levy based on the value of people’s homes, a powerful think tank has said.

The radical plans put forward by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) would see households pay yearly property taxes based on the current market price of their home.

It argued the move would help reduce wealth inequality between those who own a home and those who don’t.

The think tank claimed housing is currently “undertaxed” relative to other assets, distorting investment behaviour and contributing to inequality between homeowners and renters.

A property tax rate of 0.5 per cent would mean an annual tax bill of £1,243 for the owner of an averagely priced UK home valued at £248,611, the IPPR said.

The think tank claimed if the new property tax was set at 0.5 per cent it would raise at least as much as current council taxes. …

Carys Roberts, senior economist at IPPR, said: “Council tax is a regressive tax as it falls disproportionately on those with lower incomes and wealth.

“It’s also outdated, as it’s based on valuations that have not been updated since 1992.

“A new new property tax would be far more progressive, and would effectively capture increases in house prices in a way the current system does not.”

Property owners have seen their wealth and income grow, while rising numbers are locked out of home ownership and must pay increasingly high rents, according to the IPPR.”

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/7448976/property-tax-scrap-council-tax-stamp-duty/

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

18 Sep 2018

Posted under

Accountability, Austerity cuts, Council tax, Local Government Finance, Somerset County Council

“Somerset [Tories] blames ‘broken’ [Tory] funding system for major cuts”

Too little too late, councillors. You froze your council tax and submitted yourselves willingly (nay, enthusiastically) to austerity – now reap your “reward”. Or rather cause your voters to suffer for your blind adherence over these years to the party line.

“Youth services, learning disability support and reserves contributions will be hit under new plans approved by the council.

Savings of £13m over the remainder of this financial year and £15m in total in 2019-20 are expected to be made through the plans, ratified by the council last Monday.

The young carers service was the only area given a ‘stay of execution’ while the council discusses with the carers and the families where else they could get support, such as voluntary groups. This service could still be cut.

Council leader David Fothergill said: “This is not the biggest set of savings Somerset has faced. But it is absolutely the most difficult set of decisions we have had to consider.”

He added: “The government model for funding local authorities is broken.

“Rural councils like ours don’t get the funding they need or deserve.

“I have taken every opportunity to lobby and fight to address this, but there has been no extra funding. That is hugely disappointing.”

The council also wants to make savings in areas including winter gritting, park and ride services and funding to Citizens Advice Bureau services.

Fothergill said he would be writing to the secretary of state to ask for help before the next budget.

As reported by PF in July, the council ruled out issuing a Section 114 notice, as Northamptonshire council did earlier this year. It did say at the time it would have to make “urgent decisions” to address its financial position.

The council will be consulting on proposals for councillors and staff to take two days’ unpaid leave for the next two years. Unite union has criticised this idea, saying it was “a step too far”.

Elsewhere, Fife Council is faced with a £32m budget gap by 2022, according to a council report.

The Scottish council will have to make savings of 5% every year to plug gaps in its finances, the report put to the council’s policy and coordination committee said.

The council predicted its budget gap will rise from £9.4m in 2019-20 to £23.1m in 2020-21 and reach £32.1m in 2021-22.

The report said the biggest budget pressures faced by the council include children’s services and education (48%) and health and social care (17%).

The council has been contacted for comment.”

https://www.publicfinance.co.uk/news/2018/09/somerset-blames-broken-funding-system-major-cuts

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

3 Jul 2018

Posted under

Accountability, Asset sweating, Austerity cuts, Council tax, Health and Social Care (local)

“Council cuts are putting the vulnerable at risk, Tory peer says”

“LGA chief says austerity could damage local authorities ‘beyond recognition’

Local authorities have reached the point where relentless financial cutbacks are putting the wellbeing of vulnerable adults and children at risk, the Conservative leader of the Local Government Association (LGA) has warned.

The Tory peer Lord Porter said that after eight years of austerity during which £16bn has been stripped from municipal budgets in England, councils risked being “damaged beyond recognition” and communities depleted of vital services.

An £8bn black hole in council budgets would open up by 2023 unless ministers stepped in to close the gap between spiralling demand for adult and children’s social care services and shrinking town hall incomes, he said.

“We’ve reached a point where councils will no longer be able to support our residents as they expect, including our most vulnerable,” Porter added.

As well as problems coping with demand for services for elderly and disabled adults, the LGA says councils are struggling with an explosion in the number of children in care, and a rising bill for 80,000 homeless families placed in temporary housing.

An LGA briefing on the prospects for local government states: “The failure to properly fund these services puts the wellbeing of some of the most vulnerable residents at risk, and this cannot go on.”

Porter’s intervention, ahead of the LGA annual conference, which opens in Birmingham on Tuesday, reflects councils’ increasing concern about the precariousness of local authority finances, and frustration that ministers are ignoring the escalating crisis in social care.

While the NHS last month received a five-year £20bn cash injection, the government’s plans to overhaul the funding of adult social care services, originally due in a green paper before the summer, were delayed until the autumn. Council bosses have warned that in many areas these services are on the verge of collapse.

The fragility of many individual councils’ finances has increased speculation that more local authorities could follow Northamptonshire county council into bankruptcy. In May, Tory-controlled Somerset called for an overhaul of council funding after it was warned by auditors it could go bust.

Council leaders are also worried about the political consequences of having to sacrifice popular local services such as libraries, Sure Start centres, parks and leisure centres to divert funds into core services such as social care.

Bus services in ‘crisis’ as councils cut funding, campaigners warn
Porter said: “Councils now spend less on early intervention, support for the voluntary sector has been reduced, rural bus services have been scaled back, libraries have been closed and other services have also taken a hit. More and more councils are struggling to balance their books and others are considering whether they have the funding to even deliver their statutory requirements.

“If the government allows the funding gap facing councils and local services to reach almost £8bn by the middle of the next decade, then our councils and local services will be damaged beyond recognition.”

The LGA is calling for councils’ funding problems to be addressed through a government spending review expected in spring 2019, which is likely to set out public services funding plans over the four years to 2023.

A Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government spokesman said: “We recognise the pressures councils are facing, so we are working with local government to develop a funding system for the future. Over the next two years, we are providing councils with £90.7bn to help them meet the needs of their residents. On top of this, we are giving them the power to retain more of the income they get from business rates so they can use it to drive further growth in their area.”

Labour’s Andrew Gwynne, the shadow communities and local government secretary, said: “This new analysis is a damning verdict on eight years of Tory austerity. Our public services are straining at the seams, whilst the government continues to cut funding.”

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jul/03/council-cuts-are-putting-the-vulnerable-at-risk-tory-peer-says

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

19 Jun 2018

Posted under

Accountability, Asset Management Group, Asset sweating, Council tax, EDDC HQ, EDDC Monitoring Officer, Inequality

The Great Public Asset Sale!

No mention of community hospital sales – many hospitals having been financed by the local population.

And it begs the question: if the community has no assets and is getting only statutory services which are funded out of general taxation – what are we paying (increased) council taxes for?

“Libraries, swimming pools, youth and community centres, town halls, parks and other open spaces were among more than 4,000 public assets sold by local councils to developers and other private buyers last year.

Sales appear to have risen since George Osborne, who was then the chancellor, changed the rules in 2016 to allow local authorities to use money from sales of publicly owned buildings and land to cover running costs. Campaigners say that authorities facing financial pressures are denying future generations access to many community assets.

Locality, a network of community organisations, submitted freedom of information requests to all 353 local authorities in England asking about asset sales, of which 240 responded. The results showed that councils sold 4,131 buildings or plots of land last year.

Tony Armstrong, the chief executive of Locality, said: “One of the concerns we have is that many local authorities are just selling these assets off, and until now we have not had a clear picture of the scale of this.” He called for more buildings and sites that councils could no longer operate to be transferred to community groups that could run them on a not-for-profit basis.

Richard Watts, of the Local Government Association, said: “With local government facing an overall funding gap in excess of £5 billion a year by 2020, councils face difficult decisions about how best to use their resources to support local services, day-to-day activities and to protect public assets. Before a decision is made to sell an asset, the cost of selling it versus the benefit it could bring is considered carefully.”

Source:Times (pay wall)

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

13 May 2018

Posted under

Council tax, Inequality

The super-rich turn out to be mean – imagine that!

“Just 350 of the 15,600 wealthiest households in Westminster, one of the country’s richest boroughs, have answered the local authority’s call to voluntarily pay extra council tax to help tackle the homelessness crisis in the heart of London.

In February, the Westminster council leader, Nickie Aiken, wrote to all residents in the most expensive band H properties to ask them to consider paying an extra £833-a-year “community contribution” to help fund youth clubs, homelessness services and visits to lonely people.

But only 2% of the households have stepped forward to help their poorer neighbours, the Guardian can reveal. Those asked to consider making an extra contribution include the residents of the Candy brothers’ luxurious One Hyde Park apartment complex in Knightsbridge and those living in hundreds of multimillion-pound mansions in Mayfair, Belgravia and Maida Vale.

AdvertisementHide
Residents in Westminster pay the lowest council tax in the country, with band H payments of £832 a year plus another £588 to the Greater London Authority. In Poole, Dorset, the band H charge is £3,358.

While very few of Westminster’s wealthiest residents have answered the council’s plea for help in maintaining essential services, they are paying tens of thousands of pounds a year in service charges to maintain their luxury buildings. The service charge on a £6m one-bedroom apartment in One Hyde Park comes in at more than £22,000 a year. The most expensive flat in the development was sold to the Ukrainian billionaire Rinat Akhmetov for £135m in 2011.

Aiken said she introduced the voluntary contribution scheme following “a growing number of requests from some residents who live in the highest valued homes that they wanted to voluntarily contribute more than their existing council tax”.

The council said that in a pilot consultation more than 400 people responded positively to the survey saying they would support the scheme. But it appears that many may have failed to follow through on their initial enthusiasm. “The outcome of our consultation reflects the kind and generous spirit of Westminster residents,” Aiken said in February. “It also confirmed what I had heard from people I had met on the doorstep that those in the more expensive homes are willing to contribute more to community projects. The scheme is most popular among residents of the most expensive homes.”

However, four months down the line, Aiken said just 350 households had contributed a total of £342,000. The biggest single donation was £2,500. “This scheme had its cynics, but the number of contributions we have had are proof that an innovative idea like this one can make a difference,” she said. …”

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2018/may/13/westminster-wealthiest-households-failing-pay-extra-tax-community-contribution

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

2 May 2018

Posted under

Accountability, Asset sweating, Austerity cuts, Business Rates, Council tax, EDDC

“Trying to maximise income purely from commercial revenues is NOT what the public want.”

CIPFA chief executive Rob Whiteman has told a conference this morning”

“… At some point in the next 15 – 20 years local government needs to be reorganised. We need to be aware reorganisation would be a good thing.”

But he predicted there was unlikely to be “any meaningful local government reform” for some time.

Local government must rebuild trust with the public, Whiteman told his audience. “In its present form, local government is not perfect.

“I do not think that trying to maximise income purely from commercial revenues is what the public want.”

Don Peebles, head of CIPFA UK policy and technical, echoed this, suggesting local government’s commercial investments should be more about keeping council finances afloat rather than maximising profit.

He said recent changes to the prudential code – the statutory guidance for local government on borrowing and investments – reflected that “the priority is not maximisation of return but the protection of capital”. …”

https://www.publicfinance.co.uk/news/2018/05/local-government-uncertain-place-10-years

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

29 Mar 2018

Posted under

Accountability, Asset Management Group, Asset sweating, Austerity cuts, Council tax, East Devon Growth Point, Economy

Council borrowing so high, government intervention may be needed

EDDC is borrowing to fund the building of its new HQ and to fund its “Growth Point” and is also considering going into the housing construction market.

“Local authorities could face further intervention by central government if new changes to investment and treasury codes fail to dampen council borrowing levels, according to a senior Whitehall official. …

[A conference speaker said] … “said: “When last year local authorities borrowed an additional £3.8bn, that was a £3.8bn increase in net debt. “That was £3.8bn less that the chancellor had available to distribute as funding across the board at the last budget. “So, local authority borrowing does have a real world impact in the overall quantum of funding that is available to government.”

In addition, he said that concerns have been raised that councils investing in particular asset classes can drive prices up, creating a bubble.

New principles on proportionality included in the code were triggered by some smaller authorities taking on huge sums of debt relative to their size, Caller [the speaker] added.

“We had concerns that those authorities who were doing that were effectively assuming that government stood behind their risk. “That is not the statutory position, and it is not a position we want to encourage. “What the legislation says is that effectively it is council tax payers that have to make good any deficit in those assumptions, not central government. We want people to remember that.” …

http://www.room151.co.uk/treasury/councils-could-face-additional-intervention-if-borrowing-rates-continue/

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

20 Mar 2018

Posted under

Council tax, Inequality

“Scrap ‘highly regressive’ council tax, says thinktank”

“Council tax is an outdated and regressive levy on households that should be scrapped in favour of a progressive levy on property, according to a report by the Resolution Foundation.

The thinktank said council tax had become almost flat-rated in some areas to leave it resembling the much maligned poll tax of the early 1990s.

Someone living in a property worth £100,000 pays around five times as much council tax relative to property value as someone living in a property worth £1m. This is exactly the kind of result that opponents of the poll tax wanted to avoid and in stark contrast to income tax, which increases with incomes in a progressive way so higher earners pay a higher average tax rate,” she said.

There are eight council tax bands that determine annual charges. All the bands are based on 1991 property prices following the failure of successive governments to sanction revaluations.

The highest band (H) is for homes valued at £320,000 and above, despite the average London houseprice now being more than £480,000. Purbeck district council in Dorset will charge band H homes £3,747 from April while Wandsworth council in London, which hosts some of the most valuable homes in the UK, will charge £1,433.

The foundation said ministers should consider replicating the 2017 reforms implemented in Scotland across England and Wales, which involved increasing council tax rates in the top four bands and generated a little over £1bn.

An alternative reform would be a “mansion tax” surcharge of 1% on the value of properties worth more than £2m and 2% on the value of properties above £3m, which would also generate just over £1bn.

A broader overhaul could involve a switch to a 0.5% charge on all properties that would result in a £100,000 home in Newcastle being charged £500 a year and a similar sized £1m home in London charged £5,000 – a £3,000 increase on current charges. …”

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2018/mar/20/scrap-highly-regressive-council-tax-says-thinktank

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

26 Feb 2018

Posted under

Accountability, Austerity cuts, Council tax, EDDC, Sustainability, Thelma Hulbert Gallery

Comments

1 Comment

Last legs for Thelma Hulbert gallery?

Owl says: The gallery, in Honiton, has swallowed up around £500,000 of our council tax money over the last few years. Could The Beehive (also a gobbler of funds in the past) perhaps house the gallery’s art and activities?

Or, here’s a thought: display it in the new £10 million HQ currently under construction in Honiton!

“Unprecedented increases in council tax starting in April will not offset cuts to services including children’s centres and libraries, local authorities have warned.

The Local Government Association (LGA) said councils in England would raise an estimated £1.1bn through higher council taxes in 2017-18, but this would not cover the £1.4bn lost through cuts to central government funding plus the higher wage bill of £1bn.

Nearly half of English councils with responsibility for providing social care for adults and children will increase council tax by the maximum 5.99% allowed – 2.99% for general council tax plus a further levy of up to 3% to pay for the care of older and disabled adults – but this will not prevent further cuts to services, according to the LGA.

Councils will continue to reduce or close services such as children’s centres, libraries, leisure centres, parks, museums and road repairs to plug growing gaps in adult and children’s social care and homelessness services, it says.

The widespread emergence of what some councillors have dubbed “pay more, get less” budget settlements comes as town halls struggle to balance the books after years of cuts in core government funding.

Northamptonshire county council effectively declared itself bankrupt earlier this month after admitting that rising costs and shrinking income made it unable to set a legal budget.

The council must set out revised plans for cuts at a meeting this week after an auditors report warned that its existing proposed budget plans were “not credibly achievable”.

Northamptonshire’s predicament highlights how councils are increasingly reliant on one-off measures such as dipping into reserves, or selling buildings and land, to meet the spiralling cost of social care. Those pressures are being compounded in some cases by the failure to deliver savings with existing cuts.

The LGA said 147 of the 152 English authorities that provide social care services would levy a 3% council tax precept from April to raise extra cash for the care of older and disabled adults. Although this will raise an extra £548m, it will be wiped out by the cost of meeting the national minimum wage.

These councils face additional costs estimated to be at least £400m over the next 12 months as result of a legal judgement that requires care employers to pay the minimum wage to carers working sleep-in shifts, backdated for six years.

Out of the 152 “social care” authorities, 108 also plan to increase general council tax by between 2.95% and the maximum 2.99% allowed. This will raise an estimated £548m. Five councils have said they will freeze council tax for 2018-19. …

… A spokesman for the Department of Housing, Communities and Local Government said: “As part of our finance settlement, we are delivering a real-terms increase in resources to councils over the next two years, more freedom and fairness, and greater certainty to plan and secure value for money.

“We want to work with local government to develop a new funding system for the future and encourage councils to submit responses to the review currently under way.”

England’s councils have experienced a 40% cut in central government funding since the start of the decade and face a £5bn funding gap by 2020.

The Local Government Information Unit thinktank warned this month that many English local authorities were teetering on the edge of financial crisis.”

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/feb/26/council-tax-hikes-will-not-stop-cuts-to-local-services-authorities-warn

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

26 Feb 2018

Posted under

Accountability, Council tax, Health and Social Care (local), NHS (local)

“Extra council tax income in 2018/19 will not protect under-pressure local services”

“Communities across the country will see many of their local services face further reductions this year despite paying more council tax, the Local Government Association warns today. …

With local government facing an overall funding gap that will exceed £5 billion by 2020, the LGA is warning these council tax rises will not prevent the need for continued cutbacks to all local services this year. Councils will also have to continue to divert ever-dwindling resources from other local services, including filling potholes, maintaining our parks and green spaces and running children’s centres, leisure centres and libraries, to try and plug growing funding gaps in adult social care, children’s services and homelessness support.

The LGA said the Government needs to urgently address the growing funding gaps facing local services and provide the financial sustainability and certainty needed to protect the local services our communities rely on by committing to allow local government as a whole to keep every penny of business rates collected.

LGA Chairman Lord Porter said

“Since 2010, council tax bills have risen by less than inflation and other key household bills. But faced with severe funding pressures, many councils feel they are being left with little choice but to ask residents to pay more to help them try and protect their local services.

“The extra income this year will help offset some of the financial pressures they face but the reality is that many councils are now beyond the point where council tax income can be expected to plug the growing funding gaps they face. Extra social care funding will be wiped out by the significant cost pressures of paying for the Government’s National Living Wage and extra general council tax income will only replace a third of the central government funding they will lose this year.

“This means councils will have to continue to cutback services or stop some altogether to plug funding gaps.

“We have repeatedly warned of the serious consequences of funding pressures facing services caring for the elderly and disabled, protecting children and tackling homelessness for the people that rely on them and the financial sustainability of other services councils provide. It is unfair to shift the burden of tackling a national crisis onto councils and their residents.

“The need for adequate funding for local government is urgent. To maximise the potential of local government and protect local services from further cuts, funding gaps must be properly addressed and local government as a whole must be allowed to keep all of the business rates it collects locally each year to put it on a sustainable footing.”

https://www.local.gov.uk/about/news/extra-council-tax-income-201819-will-not-protect-under-pressure-local-services

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

17 Feb 2018

Posted under

Accountability, Austerity cuts, Claire Wright, Council tax, DCC

DCC vote more cuts to keep reserves

Claire Wright and other independent councillors tried to persuade DCC to fund services rather than add to reserves – Tories voted to keep reserves.

From Claire Wright’s blig:

“… Over £155m worth of cuts have now been made to Devon County Council by central government, since austerity began in 2010. That’s around 80 per cent of the council’s core funding… gone…. …

It emerged in the past week that an extra £5m will be squirrelled away in Devon’s reserves, in case of financial difficulty.
But vital services are being relentlessly cut – for the EIGHTH year running – council tax is rocketing and the county’s people are suffering.

With council tax rising by 20 per cent in just seven years. That’s £250 for an average band D property, while wages stagnate – Devon’s residents (and people all over the country) are being ripped off by a Conservative government that claims to be a government of low taxation.

– 30 health visitor posts are to be cut which will hit families that most need support, especially those with babies and young children. The Independent Group is proposing that part of the £5m is used to prevent those losses

– Foster carers who look after the most damaged and challenging children could lose around £100 a week to foster carers who look after less damaged less challenging children.

This income cut is in addition to earlier cuts in allowances over recent years. The result of these cuts could see experienced dedicated foster carers struggle to make ends meet and be forced to leave. It is causing much anxiety … and ultimately it will be the children who suffer. The Independent Group is proposing that part of the £5m is used to shore up the income of foster carers

– The schools counselling service is set to be lost at a time when anxiety and depression among young people is soaring and when many are now being forced to PAY for their own counselling sessions. The Independent Group is proposing that part of the £5m is used to ensure this essential service continues

– People in Devon’s towns and villages are falling over dangerous paving stones every day. The Independent Group is proposing that part of the £5m is spent on making far more pavements safer, especially for elderly people who are most likely to hurt themselves and end up in hospital

And what of Devon’s MPs, especially the Conservative MPs, who ALWAYS toe the party line on cuts to our council budgets, despite requests each year from the leader of this council to stand up for the people of Devon?

Well this year, guess what? It’s no different. All Conservative MPs who were present in the chamber last week voted in favour of yet more suffering. …”

http://www.claire-wright.org/index.php/post/20m_of_devon_service_cuts_voted_through_as_council_tax_rises_by_around_five

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

17 Feb 2018

Posted under

Accountability, Austerity cuts, Council tax, Inequality

“Poverty is now so visible that even the richest can see it”

Owl wonders how many will cough up for a guilt tax – most of these people didn’t get rich by helping the poor!

“Officially, it’s not a guilt tax. Westminster council prefers the term “community contribution” to describe the idea that its millionaire residents might like to make a voluntary donation on top of council tax. It is, they say, merely a chance for the wealthiest to “invest in their neighbourhood”. Perish the thought that they may have anything to feel guilty about.

But whatever you call it, attempting to appeal to the social consciences of the super-rich is surely a sign of changing times. That a flagship Tory council should be dabbling in new forms of redistribution is interesting in itself. That it began considering the idea a few months after the Grenfell Tower fire, which had some of Kensington’s more liberal-minded millionaires asking why their council hadn’t charged them more and housed their neighbours decently, is more interesting still, given that Westminster’s guilt money is earmarked partly for tackling homelessness….

The significance of the guilt tax is that, according to the council leader, Nickie Aiken, the idea came from wealthy residents themselves, who began asking last year if they could pay more. Most tellingly of all, she says it is most popular among those living in “the most expensive homes”, reversing the normal finding that tax rises are wildly popular only with people who won’t actually be paying them. This is starting to feel less like a conventional tax, and more like the biblical concept of guilt offerings: pay up, cleanse yourself of the perceived sin of unwittingly perpetuating gross wealth inequality, and perhaps you might avoid a plague of locusts.

… Relying on charitable donations, which could dry up overnight, to fund essential public services feels precarious and wrong. But the pragmatic attraction of a guilt tax is that, like the decision by the Manchester mayor, Andy Burnham, to donate part of his salary to a homelessness fund, it is quick and achievable, and it beats wringing hands.”

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/17/poverty-visible-richest-grenfell-homelessness