25% Council Tax Annual Hike

[roses2]

Maidenhead and Windsor are set to increase their council tax by 25% this year whilst the big boss also gets a 25% pay rise from £150k/year to £200k/year.

Really bad news as this sets the precedence for other councils to do the same.

Where is the mediation authority that governs what a reasonable increase is? Currently you can't challenge this as if you don't pay you go to court.

Council tax in Windsor and Maidenhead could rise by 25% - BBC News

There is a huge difference between suggesting that £100k spent on each child is unaffordable and suggesting that SEN kids are dumped or forgotten about. This is what I mean about being able to have a sensible conversation without jumping straight to extremes in a desperate attempt to shut down important discussion. Burying our heads in the sand won't help anybody in the end!

I've missed how the two are related. Are these funded the the council? I would have expected them to have central funding that's split evenly across the country.

Looking at this https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-council-tax

which has Band D council tax levels for every English local authority since Council Tax was introduced Windsor & Maidenhead council figure was in April 2006 £987.

By 2009 it had risen to £1071. And then

2010 £1013
I’m sure many remember the MN threads bemoaning that decrease . 🤔

2011 £1008

2012 £1009

2013 £979

2014 £960

2015 £941

2016 £959

2017 £996

2018 £1044

2019 £1073 - so just £2 higher than the figure from a decade earlier.

2020 £1118

2021 £1173

2022 £1208

2023 £1269

2024 £1333

you reap what you sow, or in this case what you don’t sow.

I've missed how the two are related. Are these funded the the council? I would have expected them to have central funding that's split evenly across the country

Well that would make sense wouldn't it. But no; SEN is funded by councils. And costs have increased massively in recent years while funding hasn't.

Clearly, those boroughs which are home to more families and young children will also have more SEN spend than boroughs with a larger proportion of young professionals or students.

The LGA explain it well here:
www.local.gov.uk/topics/children-and-young-people/special-educational-needs-and-disabilities-send

It's not funded by Councils. Money to pay for agreed provisions on EHC plans is funded by ring-fenced grant from DfE, and is not part of the council's general revenue budget.

This grant, though, is not enough to cover the needs and hasn't been for several years - as explained by an earlier PP - but instead of increasing the grant, the DfE allow Councils to overspend.

Think everybody knows council provided services are in a dreadful state, but a 25% increase is pretty shocking, especially if they then give the senior staff 25% pay increases, hardly likely to go down well

Looks like Windsor and Maidenhead residents are just catching up with the rest of the country. I am band B in a London Borough and we pay about £1600 pa (and I expect that to rise a lot in April)

It's grim isn't it?
Does anything ever go down?

No not really. Quick search shows RBWM have max maximum council tax rises for the last seven years so they weren’t frozen.

The new Lib Dem council has also raised parking fees, green bin fees, resident parking fees, sports pitches, ev parking permits and bed weekly bin collections etc. Despite enormous amounts of new builds I area and the money that should bring in.

25% in one year is a huge amount for anyone year on year. I agree in the increase but the amount doesn’t consider those who are already really struggling in a very expensive area of the country.

Yeah and raised everything they could and taxed and taxed residents instead of actually trying to raise funds through strategic plans. The new Lib Dem council aren’t as bad as the last.

I think a big problem is energy costs. The council uses a lot of electricity - buildings, street lighting and so on.

The energy companies are fleecing us all. That cost then gets passed down the chain to everybody everywhere.

My friend who owns a flat in a block with lifts and lots of lighting in the corridors was complaining that the service charge there has increased by 50%.

The government needs to get a grip of energy companies and their CEO bonuses etc.

Nobody's suggesting these children are 'dumped' FFS, such drama! BUT whilst it's lovely to meet the absolute needs of a child it's not sustainable, there needs to be a middle ground. I know this needs investment however there needs to be an interim solution and fast. The amount if children being diagnosed is through the roof and increasing daily. Perhaps parents need to be told they need to take more of a role.

25% in one year is a huge amount for anyone year on year. I agree in the increase but the amount doesn’t consider those who are already really struggling in a very expensive area of the country.

It also doesn’t consider renters who, due to the competitive rental market, often have little choice about where to live and are paying council tax on properties with values they don’t benefit from and for whom a property in a high banding doesn’t necessarily reflect them having a high income.

The whole thing being based on 1991 values just causes weird distortion. Band C in my local authority includes both some three bedroom semis with gardens, and some two bedroom upper floor flats.

Did he? It didn't last then

Sounds like a bargain to me. Council tax where I live is £2,225 for a band C property, so band D would be close to £2.5k.

And services are shite, with the exception of waste collection which is incredibly efficient (although only food waste will be collected weekly from April, everything else will be fortnightly to make savings).

Isn’t it because a lot of their income comes from business rates

My council have voted to increase ours by 39% This is going to push people in this area even further into poverty.

I think this is likely what has happened, OP has misunderstood the information. It looks like a vote decided councillors are not getting any pay rise so I can't see the CEO getting 25%.

is that Band B rate is a bit of an outlier borough? Given 23/32 LBCs have a current year Band D rate of less than £1600?

or is your Band B fig including GLA etc.

They can ask, but the Secretary of State has got to give permission for any increase over 4.99%. And her ability to give permission is quite limited.

I mention this as my Council is also seeking permission for a bigger increase this year.

I don’t know, just remember reading it a few years ago. It could well be that’s the reason.

He didn’t. But the confusion is possibly understandable.

Bloody hell. I've just checked their rates. Band D where I am (northern, run down, high on the deprivation index) is over £600 more than what they are paying!!

I feel for anyone who is worried about making ends meet, but the reality is they are catching up to council tax rates that a lot of others have already been paying for a while.

No. It is worse than frozen. Look at @boys3 figures above. They cut council tax for years before those 7 years. Once they started increasing, they were therefore at a much lower base. Band D in W&M should be over £2000 if they had kept up. It has gone backwards in real terms.

So I live the next town over to Windsor, Slough, and our CT has been increased by 25% each year for the past 2-3 years. This is because the council went bankrupt (morally and financially!) So we the people of Slough are now paying for that council's mistakes. Our bin collections have been cut, lighting has been dimmed, roads are horrendous in some places and generally all services have been cut.
If the increase was going to help those that need it, and Slough was back to being the hustling town it once was instead of the absolute shell it is now, I would still struggle to find the money for the increase but at least it would be worth something! I will be paying close to an additional £50 a month for cuts in the services around me.