Council Tax bands

Shifting pensioners "rattling around in family homes" to smaller homes aka downsizing has caused a severe shortage in some areas of 1 and 2 bedroom homes. Single people (including vulnerable disabled people and DV victims) and only-child families are suffering as a result.

There's also a shortage of suitable and accessible homes for older people (and disabled people).

The way to address this is with more social housing - including both smaller and larger homes, and accessible homes for the elderly and disabled. More accessible homes are also needed for those who don't need social housing and can buy.

(But downsizing should never be forced, because there's a need to take info account the psychological and physical health impact of moving - something that's especially hard for older people).

@Rhayader I think we may both be getting confused! I don’t actually think it should be tied to services, but effectively penalising people for having “excess” space when they’re actually using less (which is what a previous poster suggested) didn’t seem a good proposition

I don’t know if you are mixing me up with someone else. I don’t think council tax should be tied to “usage”. I think it should be reformed to be a wealth tax rather than increasing income taxes which are probably topping out the laffer curve right about now.

Im just pointing out that the average pensioner is receiving a lot more in services from the council than the average young person as social care is the biggest ticket item.

Would you support a system where we did away with council tax and just paid for the services we used, bin collections, pay per park entry or a subscription, everyone pays their own social care bill etc?

I used to live in the US and we had to pay for our own bin collections and I actually quite liked it - we could decide how often they came which was nice but I don’t think it works as well for other services and it’s obviously more efficient for one provider to do the lot!

So one pensioner will use fewer services than 2… so why should the single person have to pay more?

What do you think councils spend most of their money on — it’s social care (57% of an average councils spend). Admittedly not all of that is pensioners but a significant majority is.

Other costs are small.. Waste management is 7%, parks 5%, roads 8% etc.

How am I costing more though? My council tax bill is broken down into things like social care, police, fire service etc. How would me having a bigger footprint, but living alone, somehow warrant a bigger CT bill?

So people who use fewer services should have to pay more?

And also that would really encourage more HMOs, which is probably not a great thing,

pensioners wouldn't have to move into a flat just accommodation with less square feet.

If one or two people are living in a 2000 sq ft accommodation they would have to pay more than a family of four living in 2000 sq ft of accommodation because two people would have 1000 ft each and 4 would only have 500 sq ft each.

You would then be taxed more. It is the square footage that counts. If it is one person with a lot of spare footage in a flat then they pay more. It doesn't matter if it is a house or flat. You have completely misunderstood.

Also a lot of flats aren’t suitable for people with even mild mobility difficulties, which many pensioners will have.

Council tax in Islington does not fund the council in Barnsley (to use the above example)

If there is a problem, it's that there isn't enough differentiation within some local authorities. In Islington, there will be very few properties below band D. In areas where property can be very cheap, eg parts of the Northeast, there are a disproportionate number of band A properties. My larger than average 3 bed semi in Co. Durham is band C.

The result of this is not subsidy from elsewhere. It's that council tax in these areas is often among the highest in the country to make up the shortfall

A quarter of primary school places in my borough are empty and that is after some schools have already been closed.This is typical of many London boroughs. Obviously the birth rate is a factor but the cost of housing is another big one. I think London families already have enough financial pressure piled on to them.

I used to live in a 1 bed flat that would have more footage than the terraced house I live in now.

What about taxing footage. So every person is entitled to so much footage at a basic rate. If you house has more than that footage per person-then you pay more.

Much better for families and might shift some pensioners rattling around in family homes into small flats.

Definitely doing council tax by property value is unfair.

It harms people on low incomes from areas where housing has been allowed, by successive government policies, to become too expensive.

NB. Council tax benefit was scrapped some years ago. Now individual councils decide how much to discount for people on the lowest incomes. Some still give a full discount, others don't.

So today there's a situation where a single income low waged or disabled person on benefits renting a crappy 1 bedroom flat somewhere like London or parts of the SE, could be in a higher band than a dual income owner occupier household with a house from an area with lower house prices.

London for example has the highest house prices in the UK - but the lowest wages (also I know from friends in London that public services are in many London councils pretty much non existent).

https://www.timeout.com/london/news/the-five-lowest-paid-areas-in-the-uk-are-all-in-london-022424

And obviously loads of people from London and the SE can't all just move somewhere else. As well as many especially the vulnerable needing to stay near family or work or support, if loads of people moved somewhere else then that adds pressure on housing, jobs, and public services where they move to.

Better would be increased income tax - used to nationally fund essential services (that also ends the postcode lottery of public service access and quality). And maybe a local income tax done by councils, based on income (and assets, not including the home someone lives in) for nice to have but not essential local services.

Just tell me… Why is this a mystery scavenger hunt?

Random little examples of inefficiencies in the system sort of prove that the whole system should be overhauled. Not just “more bands”.

They have the highest band D in the country
look up why

Okay I looked it up. They get 8% of their funding from retained business rates and 14% from council tax.

I’m really unsure what your point is here.

If you do not know about Breckland you do not know Council Tax stats
enjoy

Not a clue. I’m not going to go through some random councils accounts to find that out.

The fact is that councils do retain a share of business rates and that does impact their finances - especially those with large retail, business and entertainment districts.

What are the business rates retained by Breckland Borough Council ?

Please educate yourself.

Since 2013 they have kept 50% of rates under the business rates retention arrangements introduced from 1 April 2013,

This is so true! Any fool can look on Rightmove and see exactly what price properties sell for.

And yet apparently the valuation office is completely unable to work it out.

@Rhayader
Councils do not keep business rates
please educate yourself

Westminster has low council tax because it is tiny, rich and has no secondary services

What are you on about? Council tax and business rates are the two largest sources of council funding.

If one is high you don’t need the other to be as high to have the same relative amount of money. Thats why Westminster has the lowest council tax rate in the country. Just £1,946.32 for band H.