Average council tax bill to soar to record £1,500 from next year

Published 24th Jul 2009

An extra £50 will be added to council tax bills to cover new rules for holiday pay for town hall staff.

Combined with other increases, the total for a typical band D home will hit a record £1,500, up from £1,414 this year.

The most expensive band H properties will have to pay £3,000 from next April.

The complex and expensive new rules governing holiday pay for council workers will push up bills by 3 per cent alone.

Council tax bills have already more than doubled since Labour came to power. In 1997/8, the average bill was just £688.

In parts of the country where council tax is highest, the increase was even bigger. Band D bills in the East of England have gone up by 127 per cent since 1997, and in the south east by 124 per cent.

By comparison, in the north west they have risen by 81 per cent, and in Scotland by 47 per cent.

But in the same period, public satisfaction with local authorities has slumped to only 45 per cent.

Last night Tory local government spokesman Bob Neill said: 'Council tax has gone through the roof under Gordon Brown, thanks to a combination of unfunded burdens imposed from Whitehall, and fiddling of the local finance settlement.

'These new accounting rules threaten to push bills up by another £42 a year, even before the effect of inflation and other rising costs.'

Under Labour, people are paying more and getting less. No wonder public satisfaction with councils is at an all time low, given bills are hitting the £1,500 mark on a band D bill.'

The prediction of soaring bills came from the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy, the organisation of local government accountants.

It blamed the rises on new rules for calculating holiday pay.

The set of regulations, called the International Financial Reporting Standard, is to be introduced to local government next April.

CIPFA told Local Government Chronicle that councils with responsibilities for schools - county and metropolitan councils - were particularly vulnerable to these hikes because of teachers' lengthy leave entitlements.

The institute said that although some shortfall could come out of school balances, the rest would probably have to be picked up in council tax.

Pail Mason, of CIPFA, said: 'There will be a lump sum of untaken holiday pay that councils will have to account for in the current year, starting in 2010/11, rather than the year after as in the current system.

'If government does not act to stop this, then this amount could be equivalent of up to three per cent of council tax for some county councils or unitaries.'

Last year a survey by the Department for Communities and Local Government revealed that public satisfaction with councils had fallen year on year under Labour.

While 65 per cent were satisfied in 2000, just 45 per cent were happy with their councils in 2008.

Source: ' Daily Mail '

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