BOURNE COMMENT

A personal view of issues
and events

by REX NEEDLE

EXPLOITING THE COUNCIL TAX INCREASE

The signs have been obvious for several weeks but now it is out in the open that some of our local authorities intend to defy the government and put up the council tax this year. The first to break cover was Lincolnshire County Council with a proposed increase of 1.9% which is designed to bring in an extra £4.2 million to make up a budget shortfall and this week Lincolnshire Police followed suit with a planned increase of their precept by 1.95%.

We may now expect a similar increase from South Kesteven District Council, all pleading poverty yet ignoring the basic rule of the democratic state that if there is to be a tax rise then it should be for those who can afford it and the evidence is that the majority of the people cannot at the present time.

These organisations may all be feeling the pinch and cannot make ends meet on what they are getting but that is what austerity is all about. It is not intended for public organisations to defend their own fiefdoms and pass the problem on to the people but to tackle it themselves and set an example of prudence in their financial affairs. Before councillors vote for an increase, therefore, they must ask themselves where the people are expected to find the extra cash because individual households are less able to cope with the current economic crisis than multi-million pound organisations such as district and county councils and the police authorities.

Lincolnshire County Council takes the lion’s share of the council tax and this is how the leader, Martin Hill, puts it in his regular column in The Local (January 16th) accompanied by photograph of him smiling, although this is certainly no laughing matter: “No one likes higher bills but needs must. The increase will add just £20 a year to the annual bill of an average property.” Note the use of the word “just” which at times of tax increases by local councils is in good company with the other adjective “only”, both implying that they are really asking for almost nothing yet both mean the same thing in that we are expected to pay more without one thought of where this extra money will come from, an average of £20 for the county council, £3.70 from the police plus whatever the district council will be demanding. Where, for instance, will old age pensioners living on a tight household budget and struggling on low incomes and zero interest rates on their savings find another £23 when every penny is already spoken for and they are having difficulty paying their heating bills to keep warm?

Eric Pickles, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, was expecting this because earlier this year he advised residents to demand explanations from those councils who increase the rates and that includes Lincolnshire, one of thirty Conservative led authorities across the country who plan to defy the tax freeze.

The proposed 1.9% increases by the county council and 1.95% by the police authority are of course deliberate attempts to avoid a referendum that would be legally necessary if it were 2% or more, a ploy that has prompted Mr Pickles to accuse those councils of being “democracy dodgers”. Councillor Hill has suggested that they have avoided the referendum because it would cost the council £800,000 but a more obvious reason is that a proposal to increase the council tax would have undoubtedly suffered a resounding defeat. There will be a public consultation but past experience has shown that these exercises are little more than a charade, a totally ineffective method of gauging opinion because people are reluctant to complain publicly but they do grumble among themselves or fume quietly. The increases therefore look inevitable.

The present hierarchy at Lincolnshire County Council appears to have a penchant for causing public distress as the current fiasco over the county’s libraries has demonstrated, an ongoing confrontation which shows the authority at loggerheads with the people it purports to represent by trying to impose an unpopular policy of withdrawing funding from 32 of the 47 under their control in a bid to save £2 million on the annual budget. The proposal was challenged by campaigners who took their protest to the High Court last year where it was upheld yet the executive committee persists with this endeavour by voting this week to press ahead with a revised programme which will hand over 30 libraries to volunteers, if they can be found, despite the massive public resistance against it and which has already been condemned as “a disgraceful decision” by John Hough, the Labour opposition leader.

The ill-feeling generated by this policy has been aired in the social media for several months with senior councillors and pressure groups exchanging barbed comments that reveal a deep division on the issue in the council chamber whereas an acknowledgment of popular feeling would be a far more satisfactory way forward.

An increase in council tax appears to be yet another decision taken by officers and endorsed by the controlling Conservative nine-member executive, a fait accompli that takes no account of current opinion. Local authorities cannot continue treating the public like a milch cow while government tries to tackle the economic crisis by imposing austerity on the backs of the poor, spawning food banks and loan sharks and creating a new class of poverty that has no place in the civilised society of the 21st century we claim to espouse. The council should be mindful of the old saying that if the pitcher goes too often to the well it will soon be broken.

Perhaps those who run the council and the police authority should take a closer look at how the other half lives because it is extremely doubtful whether a single official, employee or elected representative of these organisations is on the minimum wage or a zero hours contract while we should remember that councillors have recently given themselves a £2,000 a year pay increase which will cost the authority an annual £250,000 previously earmarked for improving services.

There must also be a great deal of unidentified slack in the current spending budget of £1,099 million (2014-15) with many areas of expenditure that could be drastically pruned if an independent accountant were allowed to go through the books and without even seeing the figures most of us know that at least £1 million could be saved at a stroke if the council were to axe the ridiculous propaganda newsletter County News which is distributed to some 337,500 homes four times a year yet contains little of interest that could not be published in our local newspapers. What else, we wonder, could be classed as unnecessary spending if an expert analysis were made of the balance sheet and this does not include the current legal and consultation costs of the new libraries policy which were revealed this week to be almost £725,000 with a final possible total of £1 million. Is this why the people may be forced to pay another 1.9% on their council tax?

It may be coincidence but that £1 million plus the £1 million that could be saved by axing the council newspaper totals £2 million, the very sum it is trying to save on libraries but perhaps no one has spotted that yet. These figures certainly indicate that a review of the current situation is long overdue.

The New Year was meant to start with resolutions made in an attempt to right past wrongs but so few people keep them that the tradition has become discredited. Yet an annual review of our conduct can be a rewarding exercise in self-discipline particularly by those organisations that represent the people who hold them in such low esteem for past transgressions.

Local authorities are high on the list for a much-needed change of direction in their policies which often appear to have been snatched out of the air without thought of the consequences and the people often wonder if our councils are actually working for us, whether our elected representatives really do have our interests at heart or if they take the easy way out and vote meekly for the agenda drawn up by paid officials and the controlling executive anxious to preserve their own domain. Certainly, the loyalty to those who put them in office is tested when the annual spending is discussed but it is my experience that the budget will be cut and dried long before our local representatives get a sight of the balance sheet but this time they must not meekly follow the party line like sheep.

We therefore urge all of our councillors no matter what their political complexion to say no to any further increases in the council tax until the current financial situation improves. That is what we have elected them for and this will be the acid test of their will to follow the precepts of a true democracy.

Note: This article was published by the Bourne web site on 7th February 2015