Council Tax

chocolatechipcookies

I'm so sick of the amount council tax rises every year. Last year it was £967.36, which is high enough, but this year it's gone up to £1,005.44. Last year's hike was £37 and this year's is £38. How to do they decide how much it should go up, it seems it goes up far too much every year. I don't understand why it's based on the value of your house, why not your income? Why is there no control of how much it goes up? It is such a rip off. :mad:

custardy

look at the flip side here in scotland.
council tax frozen,funded by slashing local services

dmg24

I think chocolatechipcookies should go and learn something about public service funding and then could back and ask again!

davidlizard

Fully agree with the OP - Ours has gone up 5%, and am now paying over £2000 (for a modest detached house).

For this, we now have our dustbin emptied 21 times a year rather than 52, the potholes in the road are still there, about 1 in 3 street lights are not fixed and the local library is no longer open on Saturdays. We now have to pay for the rat catcher to come round, whereas last year this service was free.

In the meantime, we have jobs in the local papers such as "Smoking Cessation Officer", with a salary of £33k (and no doubt a nice pension), "IT Awareness Coordinator" (£28k) and "Environmental Services Director" (£65k + car).

We get leaflets posted telling us that we must get fit (what business is this of the councils anyway?) that on request are available in Welsh and a wealth of other languages (despite this being a rural English location) at goodness knows what cost to translate and produce.

A letter in our local rag reckons that the bulk of the increases recently have been a result of having to contribute more to ensure the final salary pension scheme requirements are satisfied. Whilst I can appreciate that obligations to existing staffs pensions are satisfied, why can these councils not join the real world and scrap final salary pension schemes for new starters?

If present rises in council tax increase at this rate, in 15 years time over half my disposable income will be going on this tax.

Rant over.

KILL_BILL

its ironic when apparently loads of councils ceo get paid over £200,00 a year for their jobs - more than the prime minister

thats a joke they work 10 - 4.30 and thats it

pinkshoes

I think if they banned internet usage for council workers, then they'd end up having to make half the staff redundant, as they'd have nothing to do!! I have a couple of mates who work for the council, and they get decent salaries for doing b*gger all!! One of them even takes 2 hour lunch breaks frequently to go and play squash!! They're very open and honest about how little work they have to do for their rather nice salaries!

And yet we also have potholes, street lamps that don't work, and they struggle to even fund a person to come and lock a park gate at night during the weekend so that chavs don't vandalise it! Don't even get me started on public bin collections! Surely that should have made our CT go down??

dexters_mum_2

I have to admit, where I am, we have had an increase of £23 for our CT this year, which isn't too bad compared to some.

What we have seen where I am is that the road outside my house is about to be dug up and replaced, the pavement has already been done. They are doing the drain soon. They have a community warden with a high visability, who you can report council related issues to, such as rubbish dumping and we have a street cleaner three times a week, which we never used to have.

They've been good in repairing the pot holes in the road as well, my hubby report a nasty pot hole round the corner (he reckoned he had whiplash from driving over it!!) and they were out the next day repairing it.

By no means is our council fantastic, don't get me started on recycling or refuse collections but I can see where at least some of my council tax is going.

I agree it's very aggrevating if you are paying but seeing nothing.

chocolatechipcookies

dmg24 wrote: »

I think chocolatechipcookies should go and learn something about public service funding and then could back and ask again!

:money: :money: :money: :money:

viktory

...I have to take issue with a couple of points.

KILL_BILL wrote: »

its ironic when apparently loads of councils ceo get paid over £200,00 a year for their jobs - more than the prime minister

thats a joke they work 10 - 4.30 and thats it

Yes, I will accept that some Council's CEO's get paid a lot - but the whole 10-4.30 thing is flexi time. And it is foolish to suggest that any CEO works permanent part time hours. They do a lot of evening work for their money.

pinkshoes wrote: »

I think if they banned internet usage for council workers, then they'd end up having to make half the staff redundant, as they'd have nothing to do!! I have a couple of mates who work for the council, and they get decent salaries for doing b*gger all!! One of them even takes 2 hour lunch breaks frequently to go and play squash!! They're very open and honest about how little work they have to do for their rather nice salaries!

And yet we also have potholes, street lamps that don't work, and they struggle to even fund a person to come and lock a park gate at night during the weekend so that chavs don't vandalise it! Don't even get me started on public bin collections! Surely that should have made our CT go down??

Obviously every council is different but the local authority I work for does not have Internet access available to it's staff. Oh and the two hour lunches are again flexi time. I think their assertions that they do very little are probably boasting because they know it winds you up.

I agree that CT is too high though.

haylibo

I think their assertions that they do very little are probably boasting because they know it winds you up.
Cobblers - it's an open secret what a cushy number council workers are on. They're protected way above the level afforded to members of the general workforce and they spend much of their time protecting budgets for their kit-kat breaks.

viktory

haylibo wrote: »

I think their assertions that they do very little are probably boasting because they know it winds you up.
Cobblers - it's an open secret what a cushy number council workers are on. They're protected way above the level afforded to members of the general workforce and they spend much of their time protecting budgets for their kit-kat breaks.

Well I am council employee and I can assure you that myself and my colleagues' are not lazy, nor do we "spend much of their time protecting budgets for their kit-kat breaks"