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MPs slam Peterborough City Council for council tax increase
Peterborough City Council news from The Peterborough Evening Telegraph. www.peterboroughtoday.co.uk/news
PRESSURE is mounting on council leaders to scrap a council tax hike after a government minister launched an astonishing broadside against the plans.
Peterborough City Council’s cabinet has come under fire for letting the adult social care bill spiral out of control, prompting a proposed 2.95 per cent tax rise in 2012/13, while refusing to accept a government grant to freeze the tax.
The increase would mean band D properties will pay an extra £32, not including the increased contributions to the police and fire services.
The decision to reject the grant prompted Bob Neill MP, minister for local government, to write to the ET calling on readers to lobby the council to freeze the bill, calling it a “kick in the teeth” for local taxpayers.
But in retaliation, leader of the council Marco Cereste, said the authority has no option but to increase tax payers contributions without making further major cuts to services.
Mr Neill’s actions were strongly backed by both Stewart Jackson, MP for Peterborough, and Shailesh Vara, MP for North West Cambridgeshire.
Cllr Cereste, who has written a personal letter to Mr Neill, said he supported the Government’s stance but it was not in the city’s best interests.
He said: “I completely agree with the minister. It would be great to be able to freeze council tax. Unfortunately, we have had many millions of pounds worth of pressures in adult social care.
“If we froze the tax and took the grant we would be fine this year but would have to find £1.6 million the year after from our budget and £3.2 million the following year.
“Alternatively we could put council tax up even more the year after.”
Mr Neill, in his letter, has slammed the 18 local authorities in the country who have so far announced they are increasing council tax, with around half accepting the freeze.
In his letter, he said: “This year, the Government is offering councils another opportunity to freeze council tax, providing a further £675 million of extra funding to support a freeze.
“Already half of all councils have signalled they will sign up to the freeze – and I congratulate those which have done so.
“A few are wobbling – having been leant upon by municipal officers who just want to fill their town hall coffers.
“I would encourage the Peterborough Evening Telegraph’s readers to lobby their local councillors if they want to keep their tax bills frozen.
“Hard-working families have to count the pounds and pennies at the end of the month. At a time when public and private sector workers are facing pay freezes, the last thing they need is to see their council tax bill get even bigger.
“This month, councils have an important opportunity to help hard-working families and pensioners with the cost of living. Anything less is a kick in the teeth to Peterborough’s taxpayers.”
Cllr Cereste blamed the need to increase tax entirely on the adult social care bill, which has forced the council to plunge an extra £10 million into the department in next year’s budget because of the city’s aging population.
He said it was “impossible” to have predicted the demand, but this has been strongly disputed by Mr Jackson.
Cllr Cereste said: “The adult social care bill has come completely out of the blue. Clearly we had predicted a change of demographic in the city but nobody was able to predict how much it would change.”
Mr Jackson said: “This has not come out of the blue. They should have been planning for this for many years.
“It can not keep blaming adult social care.
“It is time the cabinet stopped listening to its highly paid council officers and started listening to the council taxpayers.
“I am disappointed they are one of the few councils in the country not to take up the grant and freeze tax.”
Mr Vara added: “I recognise that times are tough but council tax is a very important part of people’s budget and I would like to see it frozen.
“I have spoken with councillor Cereste and made my views clear to him.
“This affects so many people, so I hope Cllr Cereste will be able to review the position.”
Why the council has decided to increase council tax
- Prior to compiling its budget for the current financial year, 2011/12, the Government told the council it would provide a £1.6 million annual grant in exchange for freezing council tax for the next four years. The council duly froze council tax in 2011/12.
- However, prior to putting together next year’s budget, for 2012/13, the Government told the council that the four-year grant plan had been changed.
- Instead, the Government would provide a one-off £1.6 million grant to the council to freeze council tax only in 2012/13.
- The council chose to reject this because when it comes to the following year’s budget, with no government grant available, the council would have an extra budget gap of £1.6 million.
- Had the council accepted the grant, by the time 2013/14 arrives it would have frozen tax two years in a row, meaning it would have missed out on an extra five per cent from each taxpayer, assuming it had increased tax by 2.5 per cent in those two years.
- To recoup this money and to keep a handle on rising costs and reduced grant funding, the council said it would have to increase council tax next year by more than the 2.95 per cent proposed to make up the gap.
- However, the Government is more than likely to cap council tax rises to 3.5 per cent, meaning that the council would have had to make extra service reductions to cover the shortfall.
- Had the previous four-year government freeze plan gone ahead as planned, the council said it would have had extra time to plan for the end of the tax freeze grants and mitigate its impact.
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Weather for Peterborough
Saturday 26 May 2012
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Temperature: 11 C to 23 C
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