Because Councils can plunder our bank accounts with the right to prosecute us for non payment many treat us taxpayers very badly. When we complain about poor service or annoying rules they blame the central government for not sharing enough of the huge tax bills they make us pay. Both branches of government threaten us to pay up and obey their every whim.
I recently compared them with supermarkets who seek to please customers and take action to keep prices down. As we approach local elections we should be pressing Council candidates to take the wishes of the taxpayers who pay their allowances more seriously.
Why dont they
1 Offer a 4% discount if you pay the annual Council Tax in one payment at the start of the year, cutting their collection costs and borrowing bills
2. Offer a discount if you send less waste to landfill, monitored by how many collection bags you use
3. Offer free parking in Council owned car parks for local resident taxpayers.
4.Switching more leisure and entertainment services to user charges with free passes for vulnerable groups.The rest of us need not pay for services we do not use.
5. Sell off so called investments that are often losing Councils money
6. Stop all anti driver measures, recognising that most travel in this country is by car and van
7.Sell off surplus land and buildings
April 19, 2025
Good morning.
The other reason I believe we do not get a good deal is because, when New Labour took office in 1997 one of the things they did was to remove the responsibility and accountability of the Councillors to the finances finances of the Council. In other words, if the Council ran out of money, the Councillors where not longer held liable, thereby remove a fundamental stabilizing force of, ‘Risk and Reward’.
We also do not have any form democratic of control over the councils finances. We are just presented with a bill and a very crude summary of what the money is spent on. As I said here before, my council listed as ‘Adult Social Care’ making up TWO THIRDS of my Council Tax, with other third going on libraries, parks, bin collection etc. Council Tax should be for services to me, not for the maintenance of others !
April 19, 2025
That “adult social care” is a statutory obligation on the council. They have no discretion on whether to pay it regardless of who you elect. Why not make the provision of a care home place at the discretion of the council? Perhaps then people will put by for their old age, not spend every penny they earn before they get there.
April 19, 2025
How about making all local and for that matter national government employees buy their own pensions, as do the self employed. That would save, give or take, 20% of the current rates bill.
April 19, 2025
Single biggest cost saving government can make is to move over to the workplace pension scheme with a total of 8% employye and employer contribution. This can still be topped up by the employee with their own money.
The other easy cost saving are DEI officers and initiatives and cash specifically for minorities including illegal minorities
April 19, 2025
The list of 7 suggestions is sensible, and the need to raise such points demonstrates the way so many Councils are thoughtless, careless and wasteful; spending and demanding more money than is used efficiently.
On 1 May, large numbers of Councils will feel the hard bite of a chunk ripped out of their authority for their laxity.
April 19, 2025
All you will see is another cohort of candidates falling over each other promising how they will spend more, because that’s who is attracted to the councillor office.
April 19, 2025
Spending more might be sensible if it’s spending more wisely, Dave, but too much isn’t.
Among many others I’ll be voting Reform, expecting those who gain office to make some savings and better decisions than the duff Councillors they replace.
April 19, 2025
Motorists are the most predated upon, regulated and penalised group in the UK. One way or another they pay far more into government than they ever get out. As a matter of urgency we need a “Teamsters” union to dictate and highlight to government, local and national, all the inbalance that motorists suffer, and to the industries that leech upon them.
April 19, 2025
Here’s an idea. As councils have responsibility of road maintenance, make vehicle excise duty a local tax. Government will still have fuel duty to pay for the motorways and trunk roads.
April 19, 2025
Unfortunately unless they can call for strikes, such a union would have no teeth and therefore be no better than the organisations we have who protest on our behalf.
April 19, 2025
@agricola – You could reason that is the diktat handed to them from the UK’s Politburo. People, the one that you see in the mirror is not permitted to take responsibility, become self-reliant and resilient. Our one party WEF Marxist State dictates direction.
Oh! how welcome it would be if even in Parliament we had 650 MP’s working with and not fighting the people, the ethos would change and Local Councils could be released to do what those they serve want and need.
April 19, 2025
Your point 4 is what I alluded to in a previous post (15th April, i believe) about council tax.
April 19, 2025
I’ve been inside a few London Council buildings. Some of them are effectively palaces surrounded by boarded up shops and businesses. The contrast is a disgrace.
In one in particular, I found inside staff talking on their mobile phones in corridors. When I asked why, I was told they were doing “deals”. Whatever they were up to, this activitiy was apparently nothing to do with their council jobs but some other activity.
In the same building, in the lift, I heard someone who turned out to be a senior staff member encourgeing a couple of staff to use up their sick pay “entitlement”.
Councillors must sort this out. We must boot out councillors who do not sort this out.
It’s about time we got councils to work efficiently and get the government subsidy and council tax bills down.
April 19, 2025
Let’s hope would-be councillors are reading this diary to help them understand how they should behave in office.
Some interesting ideas from our host, but I’m afraid councils are too busy following net0 directives and building cycle ways that remain totally under-utilized. As for the roads they seem only interested in blocking access, making life easy for a handful of cyclists while make life very difficult for motorists.
It’s important councillors fight for local issues, as many do – for example inadequate bus services. We have a direct bus to the hospital but it runs very infrequently. Yesterday, taking a less direct route because the direct route was stopped for the bank holiday, it required 3 busses to get me to the hospital. This is one type of issue councillors should be raising.
As more shops close and we go out shopping less, our net0 villages are already being defined, we should be demanding that councils explain their actions, explain very clearly what net0 directives from central government they are spending our money on and what the final plans will look like.
April 19, 2025
8. Wind up all state sector defined benefit pension schemes immediately
9. Reduce manpower to pre-pandemic levels then reduce it by a further 25% by utilising AI.
Local government is so inefficient that charging for library services etc would raise almost no revenue and we would just see services collapse. I no longer use the library, I download books from two web services where they are either free or cost just 99 pence. I am offered between ten and twenty books every day! My bookshelves are already bursting at the seams but I now have over 500 books on my tablet and laptop.
April 19, 2025
The stumbling block is that Local Councils only have limited means to gain income other than what is handed out by Central Command and control in the Politburo.
If Local Councils were engaged in the development of the areas that the pro-port to represent, able to promote the local economy the earn from it things might change for the better. The Devolution Central Command plays lip service to but is freighted off.
The UK’s Politburo is worried about only them being in charge, so only they can achieve. To that end Local Councils are in hostage and hock to central command for the bulk of their direction through diktats and also the bulk of their cash intake. Just as with the people nationally, local councils have to beholden that want to control them. The freedom (that word again) to achieve is not permitted.
April 19, 2025
Concerning “1 Offer a 4% discount if you pay the annual Council Tax in one payment at the start of the year,”, it is a good idea but it represents more work for councils and puts them at risk if funds received early are invested in the money market and lost. Councils of course typically do not recognize the time value of money.
(Also, 4 per cent. might be seen as too generous at present since the normal installment cash flows would produce the sum sought in an average of near half a year.)
April 19, 2025
Dear Mr. Redwood,
Again, I find myself comparing your comments about the poor behaviour of local councils towards their taxpayers to the ‘we know best’ conduct of our national governments to taxpayers and citizens of the UK.
On the last few occasions, we have elected governments to crack down on migration both legal and illegal. What have they done? Nothing. Did we ask for Net Zero? No. Do we all want to be forced to install heat pumps and buy electric cars? No. Do we want to give away sovereign territory? No. Did we vote to leave the EU? Yes and look what is happening.
Perhaps we should try the Switzerland approach and have more binding referendums to decide on major changes to our lives. Though I suppose that would never do for our politicians – people might conclude there was little point in having them any more.
April 19, 2025
IIUC the 4% discount would require legislation. Did you try for it when an MP for decades?
Also there is a problem that people would say it’s a reduction for the rich
What they need most is an improvement in collection procedures. The present method is too formulaic and inflexible.
And the bulk application for virtual Liability Orders is an abuse of the legal process
April 19, 2025
8. Apply the Dilnot commission report as it had been published in July 2011 with a lifetime cap between £25 and £50k (to be actualised with inflation), and not what has been successively brought by the Coalition then Conservative Governments:
– capped-cost model moved to 2017 in February 2013,
– capped-cost model now £72k in Spring 2013 budget (the £50k with inflation should have been £61k),
– the Care Act is voted in May 2014 and the cap is officially £72k, but only to be applied in 2016,
– in July 2015, the cap is announced to be postponed till 2020,
– in December 2017 after various calls for a Green Paper on care provision the cap on care costs is postponed indefinitely,
– in September 2021 a cap reappears in discussions with £86k the potential new value,
– April 2023: discussions continue.
July 2024 the Conservatives are booted out of Government and in terms of their multi-promised efforts on care, exactly nada, nothing, zilch cap-related had been done in 14 years.
Now will anything happens with the Labour Government? Apart from letting the NHS data being shared with US companies as part of the UK-US trade deal, I don’t expect much more to happen …
(Most info taken from kingsfund.org.uk 04/05/2023 ‘A history of social care funding reform in England, 1948 to 2023’)
Reply The Conservatives repeatedly tried to secure cross party agreement as these long term regimes must not be changed after each election.There was no consensus. Labour may find the same. If you want an expensive scheme as you imply you need to say which taxes will go up to pay for it.
April 19, 2025
All very sensible suggestions, so why do councillors not do them? Do our MP’s and Councillors have a common sense bypass as soon as they are elected?
It seems the Government, at both the local and national levels, is determined to do everything possible to make life difficult for the people who elected them!
I talked to one of our local councillors today, who said they struggled to get members to serve on local committees. The burden then falls on a few willing councillors, who are forced to attend extra meetings, because too many others are too lazy. How do you sort it out, at both the local and national level I don’t know.
April 19, 2025
Why should they? Where’s the incentive to do otherwise? They’re full of mini dictators wanting to drag the country leftwards and we know from the history of the last century where the Far Left eventually take us. DEI is designed to replace freedom and meritocracy and Net Zero to impoverish.
April 19, 2025
Don’t forget that the goal of Socialism and Net Zero is to make the population poorer. Councils are playing their part.