Harry Fone is the Grassroots Campaign Manager for the TaxPayers’ Alliance.
Less than two weeks into January and councils are already telling residents to expect another year of inflation-busting rate rises. Local authorities will be permitted to raise Council Tax by up to 4.99 per cent and many have already indicated they will do so. A typical band D household could see their bills rise by as much as £106.
However, there is promising news from the home of the concrete cows. Milton Keynes Council (MKC) has taken the welcome step of using its sizable reserves to implement a more bearable rise of 2.5 per cent. The council leader has clearly listened to the concerns of local residents, saying, “the time has come to use those emergency reserves during a crisis rather than cut vital services”.
According to the most recent figures, reserves from all councils totalled £25.5 billion. It seems there is plenty of money for a rainy day and residents of Milton Keynes will be grateful for the lowest rate rise in five years. But could the council have done more?
MKC has been no stranger to wasteful spending in recent times. In January 2020 as part of efforts to tackle climate change, £95,000 of ratepayers’ cash was allocated to adorn underpasses and bus shelters with moss. But this pales into insignificance compared to the cost of refurbishing council offices that went at least £7.8 million over budget. Perhaps MKC should focus on stamping out largesse before plundering its coffers.
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In Hampshire, the Police and Crime Commissioner Michael Lane – who enjoys a taxpayer-funded salary of £86,700 – has called for the policing precept, which makes up part of Council Tax bills, to be increased. Both he and the chief constable of Hampshire Constabulary are recommending a rise by the maximum permissible £15. The injection of cash will be used to fund the “early recruitment of 50 new police officers”.
But like Milton Keynes, could this hike have been averted? The Daily Mail discovered that since 2012 Hampshire Police and Crime Commissioners splurged £51,000 on merchandise such as keyrings and stress balls. Unfortunately as is so often the case the wasteful spending didn’t stop there.
In 2014, Thames Valley Police and Hampshire Constabulary combined their efforts and money to create a new 999 call management system. Like most public sector IT projects it has been plagued with delays and cost overruns. In July last year operators in the emergency control centre had to resort to pen and paper after the “cutting edge” system crashed.
Originally forecast to cost £27 million, the bill to the taxpayer has skyrocketed to at least £39 million. That’s £6 million that each force saw go down the drain. Given it costs around £75,000 to train and hire a police officer for one year, Hampshire Constabulary could have put 80 bobbies on the beat, never mind 50. More rigorous oversight and project management could have avoided punishing rate rises for residents and made streets safer.
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In recent years many councils have drastically cut staff numbers in an effort to balance the books and increase efficiency. News that Leeds City Council intends to axe 914 jobs recently caught my eye and made me wonder how the English “Core Cities” (Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham and Sheffield) match up in terms of the number of council employees to the number of residents. The results are quite varied but there are some noteworthy observations.
Using the latest data, Leeds had 12,868 full-time equivalent (FTE) staff. Birmingham, the biggest of the core cities in terms of population, had 696 fewer FTE employees, despite having a population around 40 per cent greater than Leeds. To put it another way, Leeds has 1 council employee for every 61 residents, compared to Birmingham’s 93. I was surprised to discover that Liverpool came out on top of all the English core cities, with 1 council employee for every 103 residents.
Of course, fewer employees per head doesn’t necessarily mean better results for ratepayers. But between 1997 and 2017 Council Tax increased by 50.5 per cent (in real terms) for Leeds and only 23.6 per cent for Birmingham.
There are undoubtedly more factors other than the number of employees that affect Council Tax bills. But, as staffing costs make up a large chunk of expenditure, local authorities should ensure they have the most efficient workforce possible – culling non-jobs would be a good start – saving their residents potentially millions of pounds in the process.