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Old 08-06-2008, 08:41   #11
g jones
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Re: Council Tax 2008/2009

Quote:
Originally Posted by andrewb View Post
Doing some more research into council tax and thought I’d post the results. I compared all band A taxes in the local area:

Ribble Valley: £937.68
Hyndburn: £995.22
Pendle: £1,009.04
Burnley: £1009.10
Rossendale: £1012.96

So what does this show? Well it shows that the authorities with most Band A housing are generally more expensive. This can be attributed to the fact that authorities with lots of high band housing can afford to have cheaper council tax as they have more money to deliver the same services.

So how can we measure how 'efficiently' citizens money is spent in return for services?
Lets take the budget divided by the amount of households to give the average amount per household for services provided.

Ribble Valley: £7,335,467 / 24,367 = £301.04
Rossendale: £11,509,000 / 29,868 = £385.32
Hyndburn: £15,097,845 / 36,194 = £417.14
Pendle: £17,268,000 / 39,097 = £441.67
Burnley: £18,035,652 / 40,292 = £447.62

As you can see Hyndburn is slap bang in the middle in terms of performance, with Burnley and Pendle being the most expensive per household and the Ribble Valley being the best performing.

My wages have gone up 23% (UNITE/AMICUS) in 8 years. My Council Tax has risen 45%. We know the Government has flooded Hyndburn and Hyndburn Council with £millions of extra subsidies and grants so in reality my Council Tax should not have gone up at all and no where near my wage increases, yet it has doubled.

Have I got value for money?

Are these dramatic increases a symptom of a failing Council, or a high Council Tax or both, or just we have lots more extra services we can cheer about that previous Councils chose not to do and not to raise taxes to do?

Last edited by g jones; 08-06-2008 at 08:44.
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