Council Tax Bill 2023/24 - A Minor Whinge

OurCreature · Post by **OurCreature** » Wed Mar 15, 2023 7:42 pm

I received my Council Tax bill yesterday; it shows the % increase compared with the previous year for each component and I disagree with the way these % figures are presented.

The calculations for the increases for New Forest District Council, Police, Fire and Totton and Eling Town Council were all right. The biggest increase was for the Town Council at 8.5%; they don't have to worry about increases in excess of an HMG arbitrary % so they can charge what they like. And as their bit isn't far short of the charge for New Forest - which was kept to a 3% increase - it isn't insignificant.

The figures for Hampshire County Council were confusing. HCC, like other County Councils, was allowed to increase their total council tax per property by 5% which is what they did - 4.99% in fact. The HCC figures were split between Adult Social Care and everything else which HCC has to do by law. Indeed on its website HCC says that because of the pressures facing ASC that part of its budget is receiving 40% of the Council Tax increase for 2023/24.

The basic increase allowed without a referendum this time round is 2.99% and the bill showed a 3% increase on HCC's everything else bit which was slightly adrift and confusing; HCC was allowed to keep ASC's share of the 2.99% increase on the total bill for its everything else bit so that in fact gave that portion of HCC's council tax an increase of 3.39%. However, HCC was allowed another 2% on last year's total council tax and all of that total was added to the ASC part of the bill.

The bill showed that 2% increase against ASC which adds to the confusion. ASC didn't go up by 2%; it went up by 17%, from £145.70 to £170.42! I think the way in which the ASC increase is presented on the bill does HCC a disservice because it conceals the huge pressure that ASC is under from rapidly increasing demand. However the manner in which those % increases are presented is prescribed by HMG and HCC admits that it detracts from clarity of presentation.

I'm aware that 99.999% of the population won't do this sort of analysis of their council tax bill and will just grumble about their bills going up. However, as a former local government accountant I grumble about inaccuracies in presentation on the council tax bill as well because I like things to be done accurately.

Furby · Post by **Furby** » Thu Mar 16, 2023 5:52 am

I got my bill too and was in the 99.9% so thank you to oc for explaining it. I had done the grumble and thought it's all a bit convenient being exactly 3% for council and 2% for social care. Also the overall total is 5.2% including police fire and mayors which go up more than 5 each . That doesn't seem fair and if having a maximum if should be the overall maximum or what's the point.

They used to send a tedious leaflet showing how they had done those sums but don't send that any more. There's a line on the bill saying go to the website for explanation. I could do that but since oc exaplained it so well I wont bother but I get a paper bill so as far as they know I might not.

I don't understand to oc level of course but i saw the 3% and ir crossed my mind wasn't it 2.99 allowed maximum. So if Hampshire is doing the same it looks like what councils are doing this year. But in the law these tiny details matter don't they. Could we see a wave of referendums because it's up more than 2.99 allowed. Probably is 2.999999999 and rounded to two places or something they can weasel out of.

P.x. I got last year's bill out and did my own how much it's gone up sums and I got 3.39 for council and 16.93 for social care. Police and fire and mayor agreed with their sums. It is indeed very confusing.

Patience · Post by **Patience** » Thu Mar 16, 2023 7:24 am

Still waiting for my council to announce the rise. I would think somewhere between 5 and 10%

Edit, they have. Just not anywhere in the media that I could find. 5% which is lower than I expected.

Wildrover · Post by **Wildrover** » Thu Mar 16, 2023 7:33 am

According to the Herts CC website they help 30,000 people each year at a cost of £443 million, around 40% of HCCC's total spend. That is £15,000 per person they help. I would love to know what they spend this vast sum of money on. If it's to ensure that people who have never worked all their life or didn't bother to save any money while they were working have a nice few years in a care home funded by our council tax that is really going to annoy me.

OurCreature · Post by **OurCreature** » Thu Mar 16, 2023 8:59 am

As I am a kind and helpful OC, here is a link to the detail of HCCC's budget for 2023/24.

https://www.hertfordshire.gov.uk/doc/ab ... tables.pdf

And here is a link to the page before that one.

https://www.hertfordshire.gov.uk/about- ... -plan.aspx

You might or might not have hours of harmless fun going through all that, WR! I had a very quick look at Adult Care Services, and £390 million of its gross expenditure of £552 million goes on 3rd Party Payments - presumably things like care home fees.

If it's to ensure that people who have never worked all their life or didn't bother to save any money while they were working have a nice few years in a care home funded by our council tax that is really going to annoy me.

People in low paid jobs possibly can't afford to save enough money to pay their own way in care homes when the time comes. I have my sandwich in the staff room at KW at the same time as the domestics and we were talking about holidays and one of them said she hadn't been away on a proper holiday to somewhere nice for more than 20 years. I leave you to speculate as to why that might be. No doubt a few of the people living in care homes and paid for by the local authority were feckless when it came to money management, but I'm not sure that all of them were.

Looking at my own circumstances, I am fortunate in that if I can get a place in KW or another Brendoncare home if I need to I can pay my way for the minimum period before they will help you with the fees if you run out of money, but a lot of that security is due to the fact that when Dad left the army he and Mum settled in Winchester instead of Wigan and so Nancy and I had a nice inheritance because they bought their house in Winchester in 1967; £4k it cost them and now the houses in their street are going for not far short of £500k. And I bought my house in the days when house prices were sensible and you only needed a mortgage of 3x your annual salary. Even so, apart from a brief window of opportunity in the late 1970s, I have never been able to afford to buy a property like a 3 bedroom semi in Winchester.

I shall stop digressing now!

Wildrover · Post by **Wildrover** » Thu Mar 16, 2023 10:25 am

It just annnoys me that having spent all my working life subsidising other people I'm expected to do it when I'm retired too. A third of my council tax, around £1,300, goes to pay for other people's care home places but of course if I ever need a care home I'll have to pay for it all myself. In fact looking through what Council Tax actually pays for I don't use any of it aside from waste management which is shambolic and I suppose you could argue I use the police although I've not seen a patrol in my village in the 20 years I've been living here and they don't even bother turning up if your house is burgled - they only seem interested in motoring offences or whether some minority or other has been offended.

OurCreature · Post by **OurCreature** » Thu Mar 16, 2023 12:27 pm

Furby wrote:-

I don't understand to oc level of course but i saw the 3% and it crossed my mind wasn't it 2.99 allowed maximum. So if Hampshire is doing the same it looks like what councils are doing this year. But in the law these tiny details matter don't they. Could we see a wave of referendums because it's up more than 2.99 allowed. Probably is 2.999999999 and rounded to two places or something they can weasel out of.

The maximum increase in basic council tax for most local authorities (including the ASC share) is 2.99%. ASC by itself gets another 2% of last year's council tax so the total increase in council tax for outfits like HCC is 4.99%. These figures are being rounded up misleadingly on the bills; they should stick to the actual percentages (when these percentages make sense) or explain duff figures like the ASC percentage. As Furby rightly notes, Police Fire and other bodies were allowed a bigger increase and in my case that bumped up my total council tax bill by 5.26%.