Voters to veto big council tax rises - DM

Sir_Humphrey

3/4 of council funding comes from the government block grant IIRC.

chucky

drc wrote: »

Not really surprising considering a quarter of council tax just goes towards paying the pension of council workers and services have actually got worse, not better, even though council tax has doubled over the last 10 years :mad:.

it's actually only about 4% but... you believe exactly what you like to believe...

Old_Slaphead

daveyjp wrote: »

"In 2008/09, the last full financial year, the Council made
employer’s contributions of £15.630m to the Falkirk Council Pension
Fund. In that period some 18.7% of council spending was financed by
council tax, the remainder being government grant. If this % is
applied to the total employer’s contribution an amount of £2.922m
results. This is equivalent to around 4.9% of council tax income."

Interesting. Looking at Falkirk's 2008/9 figures....

Income (page 21) £333 million - funded Gov't ie taxpayer 63%, domestic rates 19% business rates 18%

Employer Pension Contribs (page 73) £45.2 million

Percentage 13.6%

Comparative percentage in 2009/10 15.1%

So Falkirk is currently spending 15.1% of council taxpayers money on pensions IN ADDITION the general taxpayer is also funding the pension via the Govt Block support (so one way or another Joe Public is funding 80% of the pension and businesses the other 20%)

It's also worth noting that the LGPS is still substantially underfunded.

4% - don't make me laugh!

How can it be 4% when FCP acknowledge they are paying 14%+ into teachers pension alone (and they're the biggest group) - everyone else must be getting negative contributions !!!


http://www.falkirk.gov.uk/services/chief_executive/finance/accountancy_services/PDFs/2008_2009_accounts.pdf

System

drc wrote: »

Um, yes it does;

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1296373/Town-halls--5bn-pensions-thats-quarter-council-tax.html

Ahaha, I love the idea that someone wants to prove an argument about public spending using the Daily Wail as a source

robin_banks

chucky wrote: »

it's actually only about 4% but... you believe exactly what you like to believe...

A big difference between 1/4 and 4%.

Oh dear, the curse of the newspaper statistician has struck again.

drc

daveyjp wrote: »

drc - you really should wean yourself off the Mail - it's bad for your blood pressure.

Council Tax is a small proportion of Council Income - if you take a small proportion and apply to a large expenditure you get a DM figure which is good for headlines but not much else.


"Three Rivers District Council does not administer a pension scheme but its employees are members of the Hertfordshire Local Government Pension Scheme administered by Hertfordshire County Council and regulated by statute. In addition to the contributions made by its employees, the Council is obliged to make an employer's contribution to the Scheme.

The Council estimates that this will be in the region of £1.4m in the 2009/10 financial year. This represents 2.8% of its gross expenditure.

Council tax is derived by deducting from the council's gross expenditure the fees and charges it generates from services (e.g. leisure) and the amount of government grant, before dividing this net expenditure by the council taxbase. It is misleading, therefore, to relate the employer's pension contribution directly to the council tax since it is funded from these other sources as well. "

"In 2008/09, the last full financial year, the Council made
employer’s contributions of £15.630m to the Falkirk Council Pension
Fund. In that period some 18.7% of council spending was financed by
council tax, the remainder being government grant. If this % is
applied to the total employer’s contribution an amount of £2.922m
results. This is equivalent to around 4.9% of council tax income."

My blood pressure is fine thank you. Why the need to get personal?

Mr_Mumble

Talk about central government payments is pure semantics imho because that's just another form of taxation.

Audit Commission Report this month (pg19) puts employer/taxpayer contributions into the English LGPS at £5.5bn for FY 2008/9 and this compares with a total of £24.288bn collected from Council Tax in 2008 from England/Wales/Scotland according to the 2010 Blue Book (pg 243). Based on national statistics population info for mid-2008 England had a population of 51.5m, Wales 3m and Scotland 5.2m, that means the English population is 84.1% of Great Britain. Ceteris Paribus £20.42bn of the council tax collected is from English households (its probably higher given housing bands but that's too much detail for this post!)

£5.5bn paid into the English LGPS by taxpayers and an estimated £20.42bn paid in English council tax = 26.9% of English council tax goes into paying for the pensions of council tax workers.

tincans

Mr_Mumble wrote: »

Talk about central government payments is pure semantics imho because that's just another form of taxation.

Audit Commission Report this month (pg19) puts employer/taxpayer contributions into the English LGPS at £5.5bn for FY 2008/9 and this compares with a total of £24.288bn collected from Council Tax in 2008 from England/Wales/Scotland according to the 2010 Blue Book (pg 243). Based on national statistics population info for mid-2008 England had a population of 51.5m, Wales 3m and Scotland 5.2m, that means the English population is 84.1% of Great Britain. Ceteris Paribus £20.42bn of the council tax collected is from English households (its probably higher given housing bands but that's too much detail for this post!)

£5.5bn paid into the English LGPS by taxpayers and an estimated £20.42bn paid in English council tax = 26.9% of English council tax goes into paying for the pensions of council tax workers.

You are right that all taxation comes from individuals, but the 26.9% is hopelessly misleading because it implies that 26.9% of council tax spending goes on pensions (becuase few people understand local government funding).
This way the general public can take umbrage and think the all council spending is either on pensions or gay traveller inclusion officers.




Of course the LGPS is a great final salary scheme (and expensive for the taxpayer) but lets have some honesty in the debate.

daveyjp

At least Mr Mumble has shown the DM maths technique

"Talk about central government payments is pure semantics imho because that's just another form of taxation."

Or

"In order to show a figure of about 25% I need to exclude 75% of payments to local authorities."

Using this method - tomorrow's DM headline could be.

"0% of Council Tax payments are used for pension payments"

CLAPTON

spending on education by local goveenment was about 50 billion in 2008

so using your figure of 20b in council tax for england
then 250% of council tax goes on education............... amazing