Checked my latest Council Tax Bill - The Figures are wrong

Uglymug

I’ve just received my Council Tax Bill 2021/2022.

A cursory glance at the figures aroused my suspicions that there was something not quite right with them.

They’ve broken the bill into 4 categories, one has a large figure and the other 3 have relatively smaller ones. They’ve indicated the percentage increase in each category. The large one has gone up by 1.9%, the smaller ones by 4.8%, 3.0% and 0.0%

My suspicion was aroused when I saw that the overall bill has gone up by 4.7% - looking at the weightings of each increase I surmised that this was impossible.

Looking at the amount and percentage rise of each category I calculated that the overall rise should be slightly less than 2.3%

I tried phoning my council and after waiting in a 30 minute queue was told it was nothing to do with them and that they just follow government guidelines. My query is do I just accept this or how do I take it further?

I’m with Bury Council in Greater Manchester.

Hasbeen

Uglymug said:

I’ve just received my Council Tax Bill 2021/2022.

A cursory glance at the figures aroused my suspicions that there was something not quite right with them.

They’ve broken the bill into 4 categories, one has a large figure and the other 3 have relatively smaller ones. They’ve indicated the percentage increase in each category. The large one has gone up by 1.9%, the smaller ones by 4.8%, 3.0% and 0.0%

My suspicion was aroused when I saw that the overall bill has gone up by 4.7% - looking at the weightings of each increase I surmised that this was impossible.

Looking at the amount and percentage rise of each category I calculated that the overall rise should be slightly less than 2.3%

I tried phoning my council and after waiting in a 30 minute queue was told it was nothing to do with them and that they just follow government guidelines. My query is do I just accept this or how do I take it further?

I’m with Bury Council in Greater Manchester.

Depends on what band you are on? Which you have sadly not submitted? As long as the total payment is as below. You can work it out? 
Council Tax rates for 2021-22 - Bury Council

xylophone

See
https://www.bury.gov.uk/index.aspx?articleid=10864

molerat

Those items are a bit like the one HMRC provide about where your income tax goes, totally misleading and bear no relationship to your actual payment.  Your council tax bill has gone up by 4.7% as they said it would and that is all there is to it.

FatherTireseus

I have a similar issue in that my local council (not Bury) has sent a council tax notice for 2021-22 where the % increases for some individual line items don't match the % increases I calculated.  For example, for the Adult Social Care precept, it's shown on my bill as a 3.0% increase, but the amount has gone up from £224.35 last year to £301.50 this year - which I work out as more in the region of 34.4%!

My council's website (which goes into a bit more detail than the Bury Council website, although I confess it's not very easy to follow) says:

"It is important to note that the Adult Social Care (ASC) precept 3 percent increase is based on the Council Tax base (which includes both XXX Borough Council and ASC amounts) from last year and not just a comparison against the previous year Adult Social Care (ASC) precept amount. In addition to this as it is an accumulated amount you have to add on the ASC amount from last year into the total.

Based on an average band D property you take the 2021 to 2022 XXX Borough Council including Adult Social Care (ASC) precept amount minus last year’s 2020 to 2021. Then divide this figure by last year’s 2020 to 2021 XXX Borough Council including ASC precept amount x 100 percent to get the percentage increase.

• £1,543.14 / 100 x 3 = £46.29
• £46.29 + £134.61 (last year’s Adult Social Care amount) = £180.90"

A banding ratio is also then applied.

The % shown that my overall council tax bill has increased by is actually mathematically correct though, so I haven't followed it up.

Uglymug

Many thanks for your replies - they're very much appreciated.
My Council Tax Band is "E"
I've dug a bit deeper and found last years bill.
The "Adult Social Care"  category of my bill has gone from £171.62 to £230.73
This increase is slightly more than the stated 3% (more like 34.4%)
This means I'll be paying about £54 extra every year ad infinitum
Can I take this further with anyone or do I just accept it?

Uglymug

FatherTireseus said:

I have a similar issue in that my local council (not Bury) has sent a council tax notice for 2021-22 where the % increases for some individual line items don't match the % increases I calculated.  For example, for the Adult Social Care precept, it's shown on my bill as a 3.0% increase, but the amount has gone up from £224.35 last year to £301.50 this year - which I work out as more in the region of 34.4%!

My council's website (which goes into a bit more detail than the Bury Council website, although I confess it's not very easy to follow) says:

"It is important to note that the Adult Social Care (ASC) precept 3 percent increase is based on the Council Tax base (which includes both XXX Borough Council and ASC amounts) from last year and not just a comparison against the previous year Adult Social Care (ASC) precept amount. In addition to this as it is an accumulated amount you have to add on the ASC amount from last year into the total.

Based on an average band D property you take the 2021 to 2022 XXX Borough Council including Adult Social Care (ASC) precept amount minus last year’s 2020 to 2021. Then divide this figure by last year’s 2020 to 2021 XXX Borough Council including ASC precept amount x 100 percent to get the percentage increase.

• £1,543.14 / 100 x 3 = £46.29
• £46.29 + £134.61 (last year’s Adult Social Care amount) = £180.90"

A banding ratio is also then applied.

The % shown that my overall council tax bill has increased by is actually mathematically correct though, so I haven't followed it up.

I did not see this post until after I posted my previous reply.
Very interesting to see we get the exact same percentage rises for "Adult Social Care"
A few years ago to be more open they decided to split our council tax bills into various categories and told us the percentage rises in each. No body explained that these percentage rises were fictitious and that they could add whatever they wanted (making it legal by some small print that no one reads).
The only quoted percentage rise that is not fake is the overall percentage rise. This in my eyes is wrong.

badmemory

I too noticed something weird about the Bury tax percentages.  I just put it down to someone being mathematically incompetent either with the decimal place or trying to average percentages.  I was just grateful it didn't go up over the 4.7%.  I'd budgeted for over 10% as I assumed the gov would waive the 4.99% max.

Uglymug

A similar scenario would be when a loaf of bread goes up from £1.00 to £2.00
The council would consider this to be an increase of 2% because your shopping bill has gone up from £50.00 to £51.00
I wonder how much they paid the consultant who worked out this wheeze?

Jeremy535897

Uglymug said:

A similar scenario would be when a loaf of bread goes up from £1.00 to £2.00
The council would consider this to be an increase of 2% because your shopping bill has gone up from £50.00 to £51.00
I wonder how much they paid the consultant who worked out this wheeze?

Nothing, as it is standard practice in reporting on health issues, where relative risk (you have a 20% increased chance of getting cancer if...) is normally used instead of absolute risk (your risk of getting cancer goes up from 5 in a million to 6 in a million if...).

maxsteam

I had an argument with my local council about whether I was actually living in my house or not. It was in a regeneration zone and the council would have preferred that I did not live there because they had claimed funding from central government based on all the properties in the area being empty. It took eight years and a few bruises before most issues were settled, although there are still a few outstanding issues.

My advice is to pay the bill and make a formal complaint to the council (the process will be on your council's website). If you are not happy with the council's response to your complaint, you can move the complaint up to the next levels. If you are still not happy, you can ask the council ombudsman to look at the matter. There's no point in doing this, as the ombudsman will tell you that the council is right, but this is the correct procedure to follow if you are unhappy with your local council.

I believe that local councils have their own mathematical rules.