To be fair if our council tax had gone up by £100+ per year (£2 a week) over 8 years then it would now be £1,000 more for the Council rather than service cuts.
Most people understand that public services are paid for by the public, a little bit of pain "for the greater good".
Had the increase been planned properly we would have just budgeted differently for it. As would most folk.
As it stands we have a Council who point at the Government and deflect blame rather than taking action because it doesn`t suit their politics.
We get a letter with the bill and it says, very clearly.................and has done for the last 10 years.......
"The city council is increasing its tax by 3% "
"Even though we have increased council tax, this doesn’t raise enough to replace everything we’ve lost. This means we can’t afford all the services we used to provide. "
Put the Council Tax up above the threshold then..................... what are they scared of?
You talk of planning. When I worked for a Council you could only plan year to year due to the financing and national Govt changing criteria/creating new responsibilities without the required funding (Labour and Tories have done this). Medium to long term planning was an impossibility in most cases, nevermind if the Party in charge changes.
Councils, in the main, blame the Govt since 2010 as they had funding decimated with no notice to plan whilst Council Tax increases were limited to below inflation for a lot of that time by the same Govt. And then any increases over that have been very specific (ie. 2% for Social care which I agreed with as an aside). That is why fees etc have gone up so much but that is still a drop in the ocean. So Councils in the main were pretty much using their available resources/staff to firefight finding savings, which is the least worse option etc. Who was going to do this planning?
Councils are afraid of national Govt stepping in which has happened in various areas (local plans, funding etc etc) and taking decisions away from the local population and harming local democracy/accountability/decision making. It is amazing how common when the national Govt steps in (often on a minor matter), it is for thinly veiled political reasons (again I'm looking at Labour and Tories for this).
A number of Councils have looked at a referendum to increase Council Tax over the limit as they were allowed to but the testing proved it was a waste of money (it isn't a cheap exercise for a Council having to make savings). The testing from the ones I remember suggested it wouldn't succeed but people still expected the same services. So while you may get it, many don't as it has been looked at over many years in articles I've read on the subject.
My personal preference, (and I discussed it privately with some Councillors) would be for a referendum on the services provided which would be split into 3:
- Statutory (and this is quite a long list)
- Necessary but not statutory
- Desirable
But in reality Councils are run by politicians (Local Councillors are a whole other discussion) and it would be a very brave one to go for this solution unless desperation takes over.
