Local councils have 8 days to sort pay crisis due to Icelandic banks.

Generali

beingjdc wrote: »

Probably, but in authorities like Westminster (and probably Tower Hamlets these days with Canary Wharf!) you actually couldn't reduce the grant enough, they would still take in more money than their total budget, because there are simply so many businesses per person compared to the rest of the country.

I think that business rates are paid to Central not local Government. I'm not sure though.

I remember that when the Poll Tax came out (the 20th Century one!) that the newspaper printed a list of which boroughs were getting the biggest subsidies so that poorer boroughs didn't get massive bills. The biggest subsidy per head went to the City of London Corporation as otherwise their Poll Tax was going to be £200k per person!

neverdespairgirl

Generali wrote: »

I think that business rates are paid to Central not local Government. I'm not sure though.

In Chambers, we pay our business rates to Camden. Not sure what they then do with them.

beingjdc

neverdespairgirl wrote: »

In Chambers, we pay our business rates to Camden. Not sure what they then do with them.

They send them to Government, and then Government pays back a share of the national total to each council, adjusted for population, deprivation, rurality, and relative wages. I'm sure this is where we came in...

tomstickland

Generali wrote: »

Surely it would be better just to reduce the amount of the grant to reflect that.

We have a system of Government in this country where Civil Servants are employed to monitor Civil Servants. Things are counted twice and three times, the data put on a hard drive and left in a pub somewhere. Trivial things are given huge importance and important things are ignored entirely, often at great expense.

There's an article I read at the Times or Guardian. I think it was Mathew Parris. Anyway, the point was that Tony Blair decided that government needed internal market forces to be efficient, so he created a set of targets and loads of people to monitor departments to see if they were meeting the targets. The result of which was loads of measurements and surveys and reports. People reported that they were providing the same data to multiple monitoring departments. The result was that bits of the system made themselves very efficient at meeting targets, regardless of whether it made any sense or was any use to those who used the system.

tomstickland

Generali wrote: »

2. Want to control other peoples' lives because they feel inadequate in some other way.

These people are a real menace. It's been a bonanza for them over the last few years as the state decides the enforcing petty rules is the key to making a society great, or an easy income source.

skylight

My local council "only" deposited £2.5m in Icesave. According to the local paper that was only 2% of investments dotted around other establishments.

And these to**ers have been raising our council tax full hilt year on year. Cut expenditure, closed every single playcentre etc, cut OAP help etc. Not impressed.

moanymoany

Get this, get this.....

Haringey made a £5m investment in Iceland just last week – after the nation's first bank, Glitnir, went bankrupt.

It beggars belief - everyone and their brother on this board knew it was all up with Iceland - and most of us are not 'experts' such as councils must employ!

Is no one going to be held responsible for all of this lunacy? It seems not. :mad:

Brian_Bullocks

Generali wrote: »

I'll enjoy it a lot more once I'm in Aus and no longer expected to pay for it all.

So, you are doing a runner on old blighty?...just when we need as many tax receipts as possible :rolleyes:

PasturesNew

I can't leave. No other country will let me in.
You're all stuck with me. And I am stuck in the asylum run by the loonies.

neverdespairgirl

PasturesNew wrote: »

I can't leave. No other country will let me in.
You're all stuck with me. And I am stuck in the asylum run by the loonies.

The EU countries have to have you! Take your pick....