To think council tax rises are a joke

[lljr82]

Another huge inflation busting rise in council tax, but they've closed the library, not fixed loads of potholes, reduced rubbish collecting, social care is apparently poorly funded, the school has to beg for money at the start of each term, closed the fire station, closed a hospital nearby, reduced police numbers and won't even visit when my car was broken into even though there should be CCTV footage of it.

It just seems like a joke. Where is the money going?

I wish it was more proportionate to income. it doesn't allow for much reduction in household or personal income, leading to many people struggling to pay it whilst for others it doesn't make any difference even if it doubled overnight.

Council tax is a regressive tax.
The fact that billionaires in Central London (Band H Westminster is the lowest in the country)
pay less than lower class families in the regions (band C in poor areas)
is disgraceful
but as rebanding would hit the Rich, the Tories will not do it.

Plenty of places are reporting that lots of council tax is going on pensions.
Does not make it true though

This year's bill is about 8-9% of our household income.

Our council still managed to send a glossy magazine to every resident four times a year unles i see them cutting vanity publications like this I won't understand how we now all have to pay extra for council tax

The council don't get to keep what you pay them. They pay it to central government and get a subsidy from government to pay for services. How much the council gets depends on the make up of the population of the Borough amongst other things so each child under 5, how many OAP's that kind of thing. This is why some councils seem to be better off than others. Also councils have recently had to take over social care from the NHS.
I left a job in local authority a year ago I had been there for 17 years and I have never seen it so bad. They had cut wages including taking many jobs down one or more grades. Anyone they did recruit could only be on a temporary contract which is not attractive so you didn't get good people. We hadn't had a pay rise in years but our bills were going up just the same as everyone else's.
Final salary pensions were phased out years ago, I started working there 18 years ago and I wasn't eligible for one.
Also as a local authority worker there were no "perks" like people get at other companies like staff discounts (a friend of mine works for a bank and her staff mortgage saves her about ten grand a year) or a Christmas party.
This is austerity in action, it's why there is rubbish in the streets and people sleeping rough, why the roads are potholed and carers have to see patients for 6 minutes a slot.
Some of you must have voted for this.

mercury
Does the mag have adverts in ?
Just that ones produced by councils I audit tend to break even or make a small surplus.

*mercurymaze

Our council still managed to send a glossy magazine to every resident four times a year unles i see them cutting vanity publications like this I won't understand how we now all have to pay extra for council tax*

Quite often things like this are paid for from a special fund. The authority I worked for built a new building, everyone said "how can they pay for that and not staff to do the work or weekly bin collection" but the funding came from the DWP, some sort of local government building assistance fund and a grant from Central government which they applied for and got.
The glossy brochures are probably paid for by something similar.

The council don't get to keep what you pay them. They pay it to central government and get a subsidy from government to pay for services.
NOT TRUE
Council tax stays in house.
CTSG has been abolished.
Business rates are passed up

Final salary pensions were phased out years ago, I started working there 18 years ago and I wasn't eligible for one.
NOT TRUE
Final Salary pensions existed until 2012
I go to the LGPS employers metings and check the figures

This is austerity in action Some of you must have voted for this.
ABSOLUTELY AND UTTERLY TRUE

We just got our bill and it's gone up by just over £100, 5.8%. The county and district councils went up by 3% and 2.6% respectively, but the police increased their precept by 7.8% and the town council by 9.1%!

The town council costs us almost £150 a year, they have a budget of £1m and they do next to nothing. They maintain a cemetery, put some benches by the bus stops in the town centre a few years and pay some out in grants. I don't resent the grants too much, they give the CAB a big wedge and the CAB is desperately needed, but it seems like a crazy amount of money.

The town pays the highest council tax in the county. A few years ago, they decided that only the town's residents benefit from a park in town, and the cost of looking after is borne just by the town, not the whole district. That costs us nearly £50 a year extra in "special expenses".

Ever since the council tax came in, ours has been in the top ten highest nationally, and for a few years, was the highest.

I think it's time to get rid of two-tier councils. The cost of running 2 administrations, two lots of councillors' allowances, 2 CEO's salaries etc is just ridiculous in a county with a population not much bigger than some London boroughs.

And the leader of the county council gave himself a 17% pay rise this year, while the staff who actually deliver the services had a pay freeze for years.

Council worker here, 10 years in the job just to correct a few misconceptions.

There is no final salary pension
There is no free staff parking
There is no subsidised staff canteen tea/coffee
There are no increments(automatic got stopped 8 years ago, performance related have not been introduced)
Pay has been frozen bar the 1% or so increase for the past 5 years
Hours have been cut but not replaced year on year - a manager does the same work in a four day week - more usually is on call on their non working day.
Service demand has increased in childrens and adults services - there are more older people and vulnerable children and expectations are higher - unless of course youd prefer things like telford and care home scandals to continue to go under the radar.

Services will continue to be cut until more money comes in, or we go to providing statutory services only - at which point if councils cant balance the books control is handed back to central government.

It is a crock of shit presently, you expect local councils to be run like businesses where we cant control costs, have to provide services, cant generate any real revenue (council housing used to be a good earner!) If you think its run so badly petition your mp to hand control back centrally.

There has been a massive increase in the demand for children’s services and adult social care basically at the same time as falling revenues from central govt. corruption and pensions might play a small part but the main problem is as above

TalkinPeace
There definitely was no final salary pension on offer when I started. A colleague of mine got one but had been there many years before me.
Maybe they were still offered to high up managers till 2012 but not to anyone lower down the pecking order.
I wasn't aware they had changed the subsidy formula either. But they still don't get to keep all your money because council tax includes precepts and levies for fire, ambulance and police. It also pays for the nonsense role and election of a police and crime commissioner.

Also I think the Local Government Pension Scheme operates on a fully funded basis I.e. contributions from are paid into a fund which is invested from which pensions are paid.

no there is no advertising though it does say it cost 29p to print and deliver but times that by how many in the borough, I don't get how that can still be allowed to be printed when it can also just be accessed online.

efferlunt
LGPS pensions are indeed funded - but every one of the schemes is in deficit by an average of around 17%
(the same amount as the University Scheme out of interest)

Flock
Yes, they pass across the Police/Fire (Ambulance is not precepted) and Parishes
but nothing leaves the county.

For reference, it looks like Northampton will go to two Unitaries - thus abolishing the County and District councils.
Not sure that will work, but the audit reports on that council show it was a basket case.

Thanks talkin that make sense.

I honestly still think pensions are a side show though. Google Barnet graph of doom for a stark illustration.

OP are you hoping for any care when you are old?

Do you have child that needs an EHCP?

Blimey, so many people who think they can run councils better. Please, give it a go, stand for election because well educated councillors with business experience who are representative of the local community are an asset. I'm sure you won't mind the pay cut when you know you're transforming your local services.

Or perhaps you could work for your local council? My council struggles to recruit technical posts, engineers, ict experts, social workers, teachers. Please give it a go and you too can contribute to a fat cat pension.

To put some figures into perspective, in 2012/13 50% of the council's revenue came from central government support grants. In 2018/19 that amount is just 8% and councils will probably have to be self sufficient from the following year. There will still be some funding for specific reasons but the majority will be raised locally. However, there are restrictions on the amount council tax can be raised by and there is little control over business rates. Business rate retention doesn't help rural councils, small business rate relief has just been extended meaning fewer small businesses pay rates and large businesses hire experts to minimise their tax burden.
Given all the statutory duties councils have to fund, most do a pretty good job. Running a council like a business just isn't comparable.

Mine seems good value - it’s gone up quite a bit this year

I get my rubbish collected every other week for recycling, black bin and green bin cost was 42p per week

Police, bus passes for state pensioners,
Swimming pool, leisure center, schools, primary & secondary, roads aren’t great but the weather doesn’t help. Street lights, they do turn off many to make savings. Libraries, mobile library for elderly. Many many other services

Most of the money goes to elderly social care

But tbh I think it’s great value for 42p per week to get my rubbish taken away / there is no way I would want to be sorting it ....but possibly if I had to I would leave it at the till in the supermarket

For the first time the biggest proportion of my council tax goes on Adult social care. Im gobsmacked. 26% is going to this. Last year it was 6%. Its costing me an extra £120 for this increase.

www.torridge.gov.uk/billinginformation 2018

www.torridge.gov.uk/CHttpHandler.ashx?id=11323&p=0 2014

This is what happens when people vote for a government that doesn't give a toss about public services and the least worst off in society.
Austerity hits the poorest.
I'm sure most councils could do something to save costs but the main problem is the government cutting back on funding.
You get what you vote for so the wealthy have no issues with this but families on lower incomes do.

A lot of people have overlooked the problems associated with pensions and elderly care.

The troublesome mix of immigration, particularly of the unusually needy places, and a ever aging white demographics (not to mention ultra low birth rates in the Indian community spurred by Hindu philosophy) are creating a situation where local government needs more money to fund social services.

It is wrong to think that outsourcing to private companies is inherently bad. I am centrist on the issue because I don't think it is efficient to do literally everything in-house.

They're cutting down the cherry blossom trees on all the streets round here.

I think it's because they make a mess on the pavement.

Although on the very expensive road nearby they are keeping theirs

Also they have destroyed the library service, they have security guards essentially to stop people getting in, I think they are trying to drive down use and then say no-one's using it we can shut them. the thing that has made me most angry about the new "system" is that - they have put these security guards in and it's cards and pins to get in, for loads of the hours at all our libraries

• If you are a disabled person and have a carer who is out of borough and therefore cannot get a library card, they wont' let you in
• They have banned children under 15 (unaccompanied) and over 15 and up to 18 there are loads of forms and hoops you have to jump through to get in unaccompanied. Result is that lots of children who used library to work, some of whom will have found it an oasis away from difficult family situations and to get their work done, can no longer do that, full stop if they are under 15

Ours is the borough where the head of the council openly said he wanted to screw the residents for all they were worth for parking fees (and got in trouble for it and they had to pay it back HA!) and also attacked a woman in a shop because she had a poster in the window about parking fees. They have privatised many council jobs and outsourced already - they wanted to be the first to shovel lots of stuff over to the private sector and we all know how that goes.

They've redone some roads recently and they are so bad, they're worse than before the contractors did them . Like, really bumpy and undulating and holey. I emailed the council no response. Imagine they are paying that company £££ as usual I'm sure someone is making money somewhere.

Oh leisure!

What happened to leisure centres being for the community? And that stuff around teh Olympics with free swimming for kids and stuff?

The ones around here cost an arm and a leg. And they dont' advertise the single visit prices online - at ALL - the only advertise monthly membership like private gyms. I imagine that puts lots of people off. I think they have turned them into private / money making ventures rather than there to serve community. They are run by private companies now as well.