Tim Simpson writing in the Ealing & Acton Gazette today showed his lack of mathematics. He pointed out that the last five rises in council tax added up to 49.7%. His calculation was 4.7% + 4.9% + 6.8% + 25.9% + 7.4% = 49.7%. With a bit more attention in maths classes he would have known that percentages need to be multiplied, not added. The correct calculation would have been 1 * 1.047 * 1.049 * 1.068 * 1.259 * 1.074 = 1.586 or 58.6%.
Yesterday Ealing council announced its council tax rise for this year. Their press release says it will be 4.7% although you have to read almost down the the bottom to get this information. They seem to be pleased that they have held their rise down to 2.49% only they don’t let on that they are massively increasing borrowing by £177 million over two years. Oooops.
They use the same trick as Ken and talk about their rise being only 48p per week. Makes it sound almost painless until your bill arrives and you realise that it has doubled since Labour came to power. The combination of a Labour Government, Mayor and Council is pretty hard work.
See Ealing Times story.
The Institute for Public Policy Research is promoting the idea that big cities like Liverpool, Birmingham and Manchester should have their own mayors with tax raising powers. The London Mayor has increased his precept by 175% in seven short years. Luckily he collects this cash from us through the council tax, so whilst we feel poor at least we have jobs. The IPPR are suggesting a levy of 5% on business rates for our other great cities. No jobs north of Watford Gap then.
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Ken wants more
In a piece from the London Mayor in tonight’s Evening Standard, titled “Give me the means to help London flourish”, he asks for more power. Tomorrow sees the end of the consultation period on the devolution of more powers to the Mayor. Since the GLA was formed it has spent £120 million on a shiny new building that is too small to accommodate its ever growing payroll and the Mayor has hired a huge team to tell us how great he is. The spending of £3 million a year on the Londoner is just a small proportion of the deluge of self-congratulation coming out of the Mayor’s office.
Next year the Mayor will spend £3 billion. His charge on us has risen 175% in seven years. Should he have more power? Not likely.
For more info see review part of GLA site.
Both the Telegraph and the Times have been highlighting more large council tax increases due to be announced over the next few weeks across the country. In Ealing we are looking at 4.4-4.9%. As the Telegraph says this will be the 10th successive year of above inflation rises.
The Conservative MP Eric Pickles has been sounding off, quite rightly, about the divergence in English and Scottish increases: 84% in England since Labour came to power as opposed to 40% in Scotland. Pensions have only increased by about 35% in the same period so English pensioners have been roasted by a combination of Government pushing inadequately funded responsibilities onto councils whilst councils themselves have kept up spending on their pet projects and let bills creep up.
In London the ludicrous Labour Mayor has ramped up his charge by 175% in seven years.
In Ealing the Labour council can only get its rise down below the capping level by borrowing £1,600 per household over two years.
Follow links:
Front page lead, Telegraph 20th February
Leader, Telegraph 20th February
Times 20th February
Telegraph 21st February
Simon Heffer, Telegraph 21st February
Conservative Home
Maybe Martin Beecroft, one of our £18,000 a year Labour Councillors, was misquoted on the front page of the Ealing & Acton Gazette this morning. Talking about how much debt interest would cost us next year he was quoted as saying: “5.8% of the money the council earns would go to paying just the interest on the debt, which will be around £24m in a single year”. I would just like to point out to Beecroft that the Council don’t earn nothing. Every year they do their sums and work out how much they are going to take off us. It isn’t earning, its taxing! Beecroft, responsible for finance, rated only adequate by the Audit Commission, is trying to kid us that he is doing a good job when the council tax is about to rise at twice the rate of inflation and the Council’s debt is about to go up £87 million in just one year.
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More police promises
The Mayor’s £3 million a year freesheet, The Londoner, arrived on my doormat this morning. This was the so-called March 2006 edition. The front page lead story promised: “All London wards will have own police teams in place within weeks”. It went on to say: “Every neighbourhood in London will have its own dedicated police team by the beginning of next month”. This means our Borough Commander has to have 60 new officers in place in just 6 weeks. Four officers promised in the 15 out 23 Ealing wards that still have no team.
I have seen no announcements of detail in local press and there are no notices up at Ealing Police Station. On the other hand this is the third week running that the Ealing & Acton Gazette has run a full page ad puffing the Safer Neighbourhoods initiative. Maybe the Mayor’s £3 billion a year is getting spent on adverts and The Londoner rather than your actual police!
On Monday Ealing Conservatives issued a press release pointing up the massive debt that the Council is taking on to allow them to keep the Council Tax down without having to make any hard decisions about spending. The council’s long term debt was £339 million last year, it is projected to be £429 million this year and £516 million next. Next year the Council will spend £24 million, the equivalent of 20% of its Council Tax income, just to service the debt. The increase over two years is £1,600 per household. By borrowing this money in our name they are piling up problems for the future.
See Ealing Times story.
The Mayor produced a press release today confirming the rise in the precept for next year. In over 500 words his press people cannot actually bear to admit that the rise will be 13.3% at a time when inflation is only 2%. They try to make it sound like a small rise by talking in terms of 65p per week. All these 65ps add up though. The Mayor’s total spending next year will be £3 billion.
Labour Council Leader, Leonora Thomson, proposes to spend £457,000 next year on Around Ealing telling us how great the Council is. Since it went monthly in January, by happy coincidence the run up to local elections in May, the two last issues have carried prominent articles penned by Thomson lauding the Council’s achievements in getting a 3 star rating from the Audit Commission.
The Audit Commission is the Government’s standards setting body and it is this Labour council’s fixation with pleasing central government and the Audit Commission rather than pleasing its residents that led to last year’s expensive fiasco in the courts that cost us £350,000. The Council would do well to stop telling us about the Audit Commission’s CPA and to focus on service delivery. But as Thomson raises the issue let us look at it in more detail.
The Council’s press release on the subject does not link to the actual scorecard produced by the Audit Commission. The reason for this is that their assessment is a lot more mixed than the Council would like us to be aware of. Some of the quotes that did not make it into the Council’s press release were: “some performance indicators do not compare well with other councils nationally” and “the Council needs to develop a more overarching value for money culture”.
It is worth pointing out that 68% of councils achieved 3 or 4 stars so this is very much a prizes for all system. You have to be really quite crap to be marked down by this new system.
The scorecard comprises 10 different measures that are essentially on a four point scale from Excellent, Good, Adequate to Poor.
The main point here is that whilst Ealing is only improving adequately over 70% of councils assessed had a “Direction of Travel” that was improving strongly or improving well. More importantly maybe for Ealing residents three main front line service functions: environment, housing and adult social care, and the Council’s overall ability to manage its finances are merely adequate. In none of the 10 areas is the council excellent.
So although Thomson is wasting our time and money telling us how great the Council is she is in fact presiding over mediocrity, as warranted by the Audit Commission.
Phil Taylor 