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

Try actually getting the services though. They still won’t be repairing infrastructure and we probably still won’t be able to get the services we are supposed to be paying extra for.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/mar/30/labour-would-freeze-council-tax-for-one-year-says-keir-starmer

see 3rd para. Weasely words perhaps from a then opposition leader. Opposition being the key bit though.

I pay £1500 for a band A 1 bed flat in Somerset. I never knew how much variation there was in council tax prices!

Agree. I’m in West Mids and my Band C was over 2k last year and we have to pay for some services like waste removal on top.

That was March 2023. Was it in the 2024 election manifesto?

I read a few of the comments and thought - please stop - what about all the fiddles that are going on.
the overpayments on ppe forcovid, which isn’t required or doesnt exist

hotels being funded for some and we still have homeless

there’s loads of ways there can be used to save money,

I live in a deprived area and my band A council tax is more than their band D!!!

@boys3 LB Lewisham - read it and weep

lewisham.gov.uk/myservices/counciltax/council-tax-bands

The council has just had 16 years of one party in charge, a party which is known to keep bills as low as possible and to reduce services to pay for it. It’s not a surprise that a new party with a different approach is now in. If they are out of money, it has to be paid for somehow.

This. Totally this.

But in your deprived area, isn’t it more likely that your council has responsibility for more elderly people who can’t fund their own care, more people reliant on housing benefit and council tax benefit, more adults with complex social problems, more children with special needs, more people who need public health interventions, more people reliant on buses etc than a wealthy area?

We all pay more every year and every year get back less and less. Roads left with huge pot holes, drains not being cleaned out regularly enough, bins getting emptied less and less, less lights on, more litter everywhere.

The Sen spend is huge and I agree with others it can’t keep going up and up it’s just not viable to be spending in some cases 80-100k sometimes more per child per year. I know I’ll be dragged for this as well, but a bit like the nice guidelines with cost effectiveness for nhs drugs being allowed or approved for use, unless that child’s going to be pumping back a shed load of tax as an adult you’ve spent a fortune to just be a private daycare.

We need more council ran properly costed not for profit Sen provisions.

This.

Services where I am have been cut to nothing. Library is shut. Roads are a mess of potholes. Weeds absolutely everywhere. Ditto litter. A one-bed flat in my area is paying more in council tax than a Band C property in Windsor. However our council is paying out hugely on adult and child social care - mostly on the latter as it's a high deprivation area. So everything else, understandably, has been pared back to pay for it.

The problem is that the number of households that can pay the full council tax amount without qualifying for reduction help, is shrinking. These households are increasingly selling up and moving away. A lot of the properties are being bought by landlords - much of the stock lends itself to being split - detached houses into semis, larger villas into studio flats or HMOs. The LA's tax take is therefore reducing because the number of people who qualify for council tax reduction assistance is increasing.

I do understand that but while you are right it was frozen 8+ years ago and before that, it hasn’t been frozen in the last 7 years.

And for each of those years rhe maximum amount (before going to central government and going over the 4.99%). So in the last seven years the increase has been 35%.

The council tax may be lower than some councils but again there is a higher percentage of those in band d than in other councils, less being excerpt from council tax and very very high property costs.

If the new Lib Dem council gets its way (and has said in the Maidenhead Advertiser - the local paper) and raises council tax by 25%, that will be a 60% increase in eight years.

Again it still may be lower than some. But asking people to budget for such a ridiculous increase YOY isn’t okay. An increase is fine, it’s the amount people will have to find.

i get people will say it’s lower but again, you know what the rate is when you move to the area and don’t expect 25% in one year.

Friends in London get much better services and pay considerably less. If we are all supposed to be receiving the same services, why can't we all pay the same ( but keep the bandings).

I always thought it was cheaper in expensive areas as everyone is more likely to be paying it, so the cost for a paying household is less? In areas where lots of people are unemployed or on in-work benefits etc, the paying households have to shoulder more cost.

I WANT my mum to use her money to pay for care
But us adult children cant win can we, As you have aptly demonstrated!
If we care for our parents (including personal care) its because we want the inheritance.
If we dont and our parents buy in care its because us adult kids are lazy bastards who dont want to do any caring.

Can.Not.Win.

It wasn’t. Which was the point I was rather clumsily and not particularly effectively trying to make. 😁

so they can’t just vote to increase it and it will happen. Anything over 4.99% has to be approved by central government. I really hope for you it is denied.

It's more a consequence of using the same valuation bands in every district. In your deprived area in the North most of the houses are probably bands A, B & C . So this is where the tax has to be generated. RBKC has very little below band E .

Band D is just under £2300 in my London borough, which has one of the highest council tax rates in London. Houses are probably more expensive than Windsor and Maidenhead too.

The cost of care should be collected nationally eg via an increase in income tax, and then distributed locally based on number of people in need of social care.

And the outsourcing of care to the private sector needs to end. Paying £1,500 a week for rubbish care when it is obvious that nobody in the home cares two hoots about your relative is not acceptable.

It just never gets better
People aren't happy with the min wage increase because it's too much
But then we need it because if everything else. I get one nice month then the letters start coming in

Council tax increase, gas and electric, water, car insurance, food increasing and that's the pay rise gone so I'm just as short as I was before

I was wondering about this as ours have also voted to raise it by 37.5%. Does that mean it won’t necessarily happen?

Hard to say. It isn’t a sure thing. The council has to present its case to central government and the government has to agree to this insane increase. Gut feel is they won’t agree to this massive increase but you never know. The council can only raise by 4.99%. Is your MP in favour? May be good to raise it with them?

Same and I’m in a county just down the road! Houses not much cheaper though :)