BRACKNELL CARRIES ON REGARDLESS!

12.03.26am GMT Wed 25th Feb 2009

Local Tories press ahead with maximum council tax increase

If, as expected, Conservative-controlled Bracknell Forest Council tomorrow approves the Executive's recommended council tax increase of almost 5% for the coming financial year, it will be one of the highest increases in the country. The increase flies in the face of Conservative Party policy, which is supposedly aimed at freezing council tax according to George Osborne, and shows a total disregard for the interests of local council taxpayers who are struggling to cope with the effects of the recession.

Claims that the council still has one of the lowest council taxes of any unitary authority in the country now ring a little hollow, following a string of such increases in recent years. The difference with other unitary authorities is now at best marginal and has only been achieved by spending less than it should on maintaining and, where necessary, improving a wide range of front-line services and facilities.

The complete lack of transparency in council spending makes it difficult to establish precisely how much is being spent on individual services but the shortcomings in social care and environmental services, in particular, eg road and pavement repairs suggest that much of the increase is once again being taken up by burgeoning administrative costs. Staff numbers have continued to rise and agency and consultancy fees now equate to almost 20% of the amount of council tax collected.

Commenting on the proposed council tax increase, Ray Earwicker, Lib Dem Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Bracknell, said 'he was staggered but not surprised that the Conservative-run council had decided to ignore the recession and pretend that nothing had changed. Such an increase would be an affront to those local council taxpayers who were struggling to cope with the deepest recession many of them had known. Other equally hard-pressed councils had managed to reflect this by setting lower increases. If the increase went ahead households in the borough would be paying on average over £1300 a year in council tax (including other services) and this was without the loss of £5m in two Icelandic banks being taken into account!.

Liberal Democrats would abolish council tax and replace it with a much fairer system of local taxation based on the ability to pay. Local government funding was in urgent need of reform and neither the Conservatives nor Labour were prepared to do this.'

Ray Earwicker, Prospective Liberal Democrat MP