Council Tax - whats yours and do you think it a good system?

Spirit_2

smudger1964 wrote: »

Band F £2409.55 Sussex

smudger

Yours is substantially higher than mine, it has rather cheered me up.

RobertoMoir

zappahey wrote: »

Do you have a reference for this?

Not sure this is the scheme we're in but something like this one

http://www.ogc.gov.uk/procurement_policy_and_application_of_eu_rules_european_procurement_directives.asp

enjoy.

SingleSue

We purchased our house just as the transition was being made between rates and poll tax....it went from £118 rates to just under £300 each!

Council tax this year is £975.01 less 25% single person deduction bringing it to £731.26, property band A which is an increase of 2.6% on last year.

zappahey

RobertoMoir wrote: »

Not sure this is the scheme we're in but something like this one

http://www.ogc.gov.uk/procurement_policy_and_application_of_eu_rules_european_procurement_directives.asp

enjoy.

I'm mildly embarrassed to say that I read that while trying to find the directive that you referred to. It only says that public procurement must be tendered, which has been the case for years anyway.

I reckon the "consortium" bit is just your local management thinking that they can get a better deal that way and using it as an easy way to outsource compliance with the competition requirements.

tanith

Ours is Band D £1369 for the second year running ours is frozen and in December every household was given a £50 rebate... our Council seem to be doing something right.... and all the usual services are up to scratch too...in fact our streets have never been so clean.. maybe its all down to the recycling we are all doing :rotfl:

RobertoMoir

zappahey wrote: »

I'm mildly embarrassed to say that I read that while trying to find the directive that you referred to. It only says that public procurement must be tendered, which has been the case for years anyway.

I reckon the "consortium" bit is just your local management thinking that they can get a better deal that way and using it as an easy way to outsource compliance with the competition requirements.

Ah I said that wasn't the exact thing, which I can't find in a quick google search and I'm reluctant to post from potentially more private sources.

The thing I'm talking about is something more than the basic tender process we all know and love, and the consortium thing isn't our local management at all, its a central directive that drives banding together into a consortium because that's the only practical way of managing the process, as you say, its essentially outsourcing compliance. Except it isn't really, because we have to write "detailed but generic" specs for what we want down to the last turn of every single screw on every single little thing, each member of the consortium submits their own proposals instead of ordering together because our requirements are all different, and we're still liable to get sued if someone doesn't like the fact they didn't get the contract.

In any case, we now pay more for the exact same item than we did without the consortium, at least in my department, discounting the cost of managing the paperwork for this process. Just one more nose in the public money trough if you ask me.

Spirit_2

tanith wrote: »

Ours is Band D £1369 for the second year running ours is frozen and in December every household was given a £50 rebate... our Council seem to be doing something right.... and all the usual services are up to scratch too...in fact our streets have never been so clean.. maybe its all down to the recycling we are all doing :rotfl:

That's amazing. Can I ask which area?

tanith

Yep we are in Ealing , West London...

hillcats

We are band D and live within the L B Bromley.

http://www.bromley.gov.uk/council/tax/council_tax_increase.htm

olly300

beecher2 wrote: »

It'd be far too complicated a system to operate - look at the tax credits fiasco! How would local authorities get the information on income to work out affordability with no information on income?

Why not just have a local income tax which is contribution based, uses HMRC, everyone who works pays it, and it is based on affordability. I know it isn't perfect as people who don't work don't pay, but it seems a better system to me than either poll tax or council tax.

Non-doms and millionaires will get off paying local income tax then. Least the way it's collected now those people have to pay at least one lot of taxes in the UK.