FB: Plaid Cymru councillors refuse to support increasing council tax by 4.7%
We make no apology for standing up for RCT residents who have been hit by the cost-of-living crisis, increasing utility bills and cuts by Labour governments at all levels.
We tried to reduce the pressures but as previous years, we will have to pay more for our services.
https://www.facebook.com/PlaidRCT/videos/2094563311015494
https://www.taxpayersalliance.com below
We’re all familiar with the claim from councils that they simply must increase their rates as they don’t have enough to fund basic services. It’s a line trotted out year after year to justify inflation-busting council tax rises that hammer the finances of hard-working households across the country.
If you’ve heard something similar from your council, you may be very interested in the TPA’s latest research that we released at the start of this week. With 90 per cent of councils planning to hike rates by the maximum permitted (or more where central government gave permission), the TPA researchers took a look at just how desperate these councils really are, and whether they really need all this extra cash for services, or whether they’re simply taking it from your bank account and putting it into their own.
Perhaps you’ll have seen this coming, perhaps you won’t, but what our findings laid bare was that nearly half of all councils increased their reserves while putting up council tax. 47.2 per cent (150 out of 318) of councils which published accounts for 2023-24 saw an increase in their usable reserves during the period, while 59 councils saw increases in both 2022-23 and 2023-24.
Epping Forest topped the chart for the biggest increase of usable reserves seeing their balance tick up by a hearty £86 million in 2023-24. Hot on their heels were Milton Keynes adding £78.8 million or 29 per cent. In that same period council tax rose by 4.99 per cent. Elsewhere, three councils had usable reserves per resident in excess of £10,000. These were the City of London (£31,414), Shetland Islands (£17,548) and Orkney Islands (£11,512). A further four councils had between £2,000 and £4,000 in usable reserves per resident: Westminster (£3,248), Isles of Scilly (£2,928), Wandsworth (£2,354) and Tower Hamlets (£2,005).
With our findings gaining national attention, lead researcher on the project and TPA policy analyst, Shimeon Lee, was spot on when he told journalists: “Local taxpayers will rightly be concerned that some councils are filling their coffers at the expense of residents. For many years, town halls have consistently increased council tax and justified the rises with claims of financial hardship. These figures reveal that a significant number of local authorities are hoarding cash while local people struggle to make ends meet.” Shimeon followed up with a blog highlighting the ten key takeaways from the research which you can read here.
https://www.taxpayersalliance.com
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