Council tax freeze 'makes no sense'

Up to a fifth of local councils may put up council tax next year despite David Cameron warning against it
12 April 2012

Up to a fifth of local councils may put up council tax next year despite David Cameron warning it would be a "huge mistake" to opt out of a Government offer to freeze it.

A survey of town hall finance chiefs by the Local Government Chronicle (LGC) found a fifth were undecided whether to adopt the scheme - while 4% had already decided not to.

Among those expressing doubts, two-thirds were at Tory-controlled councils.

It was confirmed last week that the Government would again offer one-off grants equivalent to a 2.5% hike in the levy to councils which did not raise bills.

Last year, the scheme was adopted across the board meaning average Band D bills remained at £1,439 following significant rises in previous years.

Changes to the terms of the offer have left local politicians nervous about the longer-term implications of repeating the exercise however.

Unlike the previous tranche, there will be no funds provided to protect councils against knock-on effects of the freeze in future years, local government bosses have warned.

One finance director of a Tory-controlled district told the magazine that the deal "financially makes no sense" and would result in a bigger-than-planned hike the following year.

"But politically members feel they've no choice," he added.

Others said deeper service cuts would result. Based on responses from 146 finance directors, 116 said their councils would implement the freeze, six councils said they would refuse and 24 remained undecided.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in