Council f**king tax

[tinkerbellax]

So my council tax has been put up yet again. This is a bill that as a single parent, cripples me.

My bins now get emptied every couple of weeks.
My library has been closed
Today in my local paper it has been announced that extra funding for SEN children has been cut!

Wibu if I fight crime myself and empty my own fucking bin?

Well you came onto the thread saying it was all related to central government, your not a labour supporter so I am still waiting for your advice at to what type of vote would be anti-austerity

I came on to the thread to make the point that local government funding is changing because of a decision by central government. I'm not sure why you keep going on about anti-austerity and why you think it is relevant in this case.

Anyway, hopefully some MNers might be a little more clued up about local government funding now, although I live more in hope than expectation.

That's enough for one evening. I'm off to bed.

Not sure about England etc, but when I looked into appealing my business rates (because they weren't in line with government guidelines, which says the rateable value should be related to the rent) I was told by opposition councillors that the local councils here (in Scotland) had the right to value each commercial property as they saw fit, and that I was hugely unlikely to win any challenge (based on previous cases). It was the council themselves that smugly told me that it was "up to us" to decide

That's not the case in England and Wales. Opposition councillors don't always know the ins and outs though. (Neither do actual serving councillors IME...)

Dontmakeme is probably a lib dem.

I'm a full on centrist, Lib dem have never run on an a true anti-austerity stance, just the same as labour.

When all political parties ran on a layman's term of tightening our belts then anyone saying otherwise is not really coming from a neutral angle

OP, do you pay over 10 or 12 months? Our council let’s you pay over 12 months and it’s much better for budgeting.

Dontmakeme is probably a lib dem.

Dontmakeme is actually a floating voter with no political allegiance to any particular party. I vote for whichever party represents my views most accurately at the time and that changes depending on the issues at the time. Hope that helps.

Anyway, hopefully some MNers might be a little more clued up about local government funding now, although I live more in hope than expectation.

It's nice that you think you can make a political change with your posts, and yet you still ignore the core of many of my arguments made to you.

You are still trying to allude to it being just a central government issue and offer no other type of argument.

You should have just owned the "muh evil tories"

It's nice that you think you can make a political change with your posts, and yet you still ignore the core of many of my arguments made to you.
It's education that I'm interested in, not necessarily political change.
You are still trying to allude to it being just a central government issue and offer no other type of argument.
I have not said it is just a central government issue, I have said that the current crisis is largely due to changes in central government funding of councils. Since that is my view, I'm not sure why you think I need to offer any other arguments. No doubt there is a degree of corruption and incompetence in local councils but I'm sure that has been the case since time immemorial so doesn't explain the current funding crisis.
You should have just owned the "muh evil tories"
This is obviously irritating you a lot but I haven't said it. I would be making the same points whichever party had been in government when the funding changes were made. And since your "muh evil tories" remark is one that you've made to several posters on this thread, I'm left with no choice but to assume it's your default retort for anyone that doesn't agree with you.

Local services should be funded in my view by local income tax, and instead of local business rates (centrally fixed) by a local turnover or profits tax. I think the number of councillors should be reduced, given next to no role in housing management in most cases, but local councils cannot do this.

Only parliament can change this. You should consider this when choosing who to vote for in your local election, and blaming the Tories for cutting local government funding is in my view correct.

Where I live the Tories will get back in, thanks to Jeremy Corbyn's lack of action against anti-semitism in his party.

You are still trying to allude to it being just a central government issue and offer no other type of argument You should have just owned the much evil tories

It is not possible to cut Cornwall Councils funding and not cut services and raise CT, their support grant has gone from 460m in 2010 to zero next year.
The big lie of the Tory party is that they offer lower taxation than others, yet what actually happens is other taxes go up, parents make more contributions to their kids education and public servants get 1% pay rises etc etc.

We need to bite the bullet and accept the fairest way to fund public services is through general taxation, not insurance taxes or CT, which takes no account of ability to pay...... and certainly not by increasing inheritance tax thresholds for the very wealthy.

My council can't even arrange non paper email billing. They send out paper bills via a third party supplier. I lost my bill and called them to ask for it to be emailed and it took 4 days! Erm we don't have bills on site. So my personal information is sent to a third party to bill? That's a GDPR fuck up right there. How will they delete my information as part of my right to be forgotten? How is my information sent to them? Finally how much is that contract worth?
Also think of the amount of marketing material from your council that pops through your door:
Magazines (promoting wonderful services)
Leaflets
Recycling timetables

This should all be cut to the absolute minimum. The comms and marketing budgets carefully scrutinised as they are literally just mostly propoganda. I know how much money it costs to print design and copywrite magazines and it isn't cheap!

Also we are paying a fuckload towards pensions for council staff because the scheme here in Surrey was miss managed

www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/local-news/county-pension-deficit-rises-770m-4838766

A 770m deficit to the pension budget in 2006. I'd be interested to know what it currently stands at.

In that case ForalltheSaints what exactly is the point in a central government, what can they do that local councils won't, and why should we fund those overfed pompous asses down in Westminster who like to pretend anywhere outside London doesn't exist?

The thought that has been lurking around in my head lately is that we date the end of Roman power in Britain from the day they sent a letter out to local town councils, saying that they would offer no further help or support - the locals were on their own.

I am also interested in the continual juxtaposition of local councils and 'community' funding, volunteers or interests. Local councils are local communities, or should be. They are overgrown and too large I think - leading to many of the problems of wasted funding which happens in large organisations of any type - but they are still the only political representation of local interests.

Let's face it Britain is up shit creek without a paddle, and the lack of decent strong local government with no powers is a large reason why.

skippy, outsourcing is something else that central governments have been forcing on local for a long while. Yes there're a lot of conflicts of interest, which have just been airbrushed out and dismissed by neoliberalist theories.

My Tory council has frozen it yet again. We have the lowest in the country despite being central London . Just saying...

Sure councils can be more efficient but going paperless billing, bearing in mind that ll no doubt need some new IT infrastructure, isnt going to re open a few libraries, resurface local roads or bring back your weekly bin collection.

You cannot undo pension liabilities and in any case avg local gov worker pension is 4k, hardly a fortune and of course will mean they ll not be claiming pensionable benefits.

I'm not going to do the sums but paperless billing will save long term. It is also much better for the environment. It will mean all bills they send can be paperless. Business rates, social housing rental etc.
Councils need to pull their socks up and realise it is now 2018. I get fed up with the leaflets pushed through my door and I'd say 50% are from the council.

My son is disabled and Surrey have decided to cut 20m from their SEN budget. Their SEN support is already a shitshow at best. I cannot imagine it being worse. I once had to take a day off work to go and sit in the building they were based in so that my sons case officer could not just ignore me. This person had failed repeatedly to respond to phone calls and emails regarding my son's schooling. Surrey is a disgrace.

Keep your pants on Skippy. Councils are very good at data protection - there have been a few instances where Council's have messed up and they have been fined severely. They have to report breeches and fuck-ups.

And anyway, your personal information is everywhere and with all due respect you probably aren't that interesting, your council tax bill isn't going to give them that much information that can't be found from other sources (Poll register)

I know for a fact that is not true. The SEN team once sent another child's statement in the post to me by mistake. I'm pretty sure they didn't report it. In fact they asked me to prove it had happened so I had to send them a photo of this other poor child's absolutely personal and very sensitive information.

jasjas it's nice to see someone else out there who knows a bit about local councils. The whole point is to cut costs. Central government don't give a shit about the impact. Once that money is saved, they're not going to give it back to go on the rest of council services.

You might want to read some of those leaflets from the council, they might tell you about funding - where it comes from and where it is spent. SEN support has been cut because central government wants it cut, along with all other council services.

At the end of the day your local council is your local council. If you think it's corrupt, if you want it changed, go and help them do it. Oh, but you can't because you haven't the money or time. That's the same position that local councils are in.

Council tax should be directly proportional to the value of the property and levied on the owner of the property rather than the occupier
it should also be higher for properties which are owned in addition to the private residence

Extra income tax instead of council tax? So in other words you'd like to see the unemployed millionaire who inherited all his wealth paying nothing toward council services?

@Skippy - well I work for LG and we would have to do a report on it which is reviewed by a committee, to look at how and why it happened and how to prevent it happening again. I doubt they would have updated you.

Council tax should be directly proportional to the value of the property and levied on the owner of the property rather than the occupier

So if someone lives in a council-owned property (admittedly there are fewer of those these days), then the Council pays their tax for them and they pay nothing, regardless of how much they may earn?

Herein lies the problem. There are no perfectly fair ways of raising council tax.

Extra income tax instead of council tax? So in other words you'd like to see the unemployed millionaire who inherited all his wealth paying nothing toward council services?

Tbf, I doubt there are many people who fall into this category.

ohfortuna it's the occupier who is consuming council services like bin collection, educating, road maintenance, street lighting - do you also think your landlord should pay your sky bill and tesco shop?
To be honest I'm in favour of the idea that the community charge (poll tax) was supposed to help with - the amount of people in the house consuming services is what the charge should be based on, not the value of your home or how much money you earn. Why do four adults living in a property pay the same as two? My gas bill isn't based on my income, so why should the cost of collecting my bins be? I think there needs to be help for people at the bottom struggling but taxing the "rich" till the pips squeak isn't going to achieve anything concrete.

Square here in Australia, the owner pays the rates....never the renter. I pay the bills and yes, utilise the bin collection services, streetlights etc...BUT I also spend my wages in the community.

I pay taxes which go towards education and healthcare for low waged people....the house I live in is an ASSET for the owner and as such, they pay the rates.

It does seem nuts for tenants to pay tax set at the rate for an asset that they don't own.