Richmond council tax to be frozen
11:24am Wednesday 10th February 2010 in
Council tax bills are to be frozen for the next financial year, it was announced today.
Councillor Stephen Knight, Richmond Council deputy leader, confirmed bills will not rise in April and said it was a move to help residents through the financial crisis.
Coun Knight, who is also cabinet member for resources, said: “These are difficult times and we have considered this year’s settlement very carefully.
“This included heeding what we were told in a budget consultation we carried out before Christmas [which revealed] there was little appetite for higher council tax in the current economic climate."
The full budget was revealed this morning and will be discussed by the authority’s co-ordination, finance and performance commission next Wednesday before going before cabinet on February 22.
It has to approved by a meeting of full council, the next one is on March 2.
The budget includes an extra £1m for the care of older people and those with learning difficulties; a £500,000 addition to the budget for children’s services; £700,000 more for the escalating cost of waste disposal and an additional £1.2m for concessionary fares for the elderly.
It also includes a plan to save £4m over the course of the year and details of a three-year cost-cutting scheme, which could save as much as £15m.
Coun Knight added: “Councils across the country are going to face massive challenges after the next general election.
“The Government has made it clear that it wants to cut the public sector deficit, which is likely to mean real cuts in the money given to local authorities in coming years.
“Our challenge will be to protect priority services while keeping council tax down.
“None of this is easy.
“The savings will mainly come from finding more efficient ways to do things and therefore employing fewer staff.
“We are also due to make a one off saving of £600,000 from smarter use of our office space allowing us to get rid of some building leases by the end of the year.”
Coun Knight said there would not be excessive spending from the authority’s reserves - which currently stand at around £45m - but money would be spent now to save in the future.
Councillor Geoffrey Samuel, deputy leader of Richmond Conservatives, said there was money available to have offered a reduction in council tax and said residents were expecting it due to the Liberal Democrat campaigns for the 2006 election.
He said the authority was around £4.25m better off than this time last year, due to a reduction in VAT, the mortgage on the civic centre being paid off and spending less than budgeted this year.
He added: "There was room for a reduction.
"And it makes us even more cynical about the increase last year.
“We said last year it was time to go for 0 per cent or a reduction, they said a 4.33 per cent increase was necessary to keep service levels up.
“It now appears it was necessary to build up a war chest to do this. I think it’s very cynical.”
Coun Knight denied the freeze had anything to do with the forthcoming council elections, scheduled for May 6, and said helping residents ease their financial burdens was the only reason for the move.
Comments(16)
Phillip Taylor
says...
4:17pm Wed 10 Feb 10
I remember the Liberals kicking up a stink when the Conservatives were able to freeze the Council Tax in the last year of their Administration 2002-6, saying that we were 'bribing' the electorate. I suppose Stephen Knight is now doing the same thing but would not dare call if an election bribe!
Lets have this Tax cut not merely frozen.
Phillip Taylor
MacGregor
says...
12:35am Thu 11 Feb 10
Yet they have presided over the highest average council tax in England, and it sounds patronising when Cllr Knight informs us “there was little appetite for higher council tax in the current economic climate”. Perhaps Cllr Knight could explain to the electorate exactly how he came to what must have been his previous conclusion that we wished to have ever higher council tax – and for what? More money squandered on their ideological battle against motorists such over £1m spent on new parking meters? Or spending approx £2,000 per ‘sleeping policeman’ when they do more harm than good such as impeding emergency vehicles, and – ironically – they have a detrimental environmental impact such as increasing noise levels, and pollution.
Compare and contrast council tax in band A - £458 in Conservative-run Westminster, and £459 in Conservative-run Wandsworth – but in Lib Dem-run rip-off Richmond it’s £1,064.67.
Rupert Harris
says...
10:49am Thu 11 Feb 10
I hope and believe that the people of Richmond will have the good sense to see through this (it's hardly a bargain anyway) and hurl them into oblivion where they belong.
This council has never shown any interest in carrying out the wishes of the people, only in following their own agenda (anti-car etc.) which, as far as I can see, few asked for; why would we when so many of us drive. Only a fool would willingly give someone large sums of money to persecute them.
Kick the arrogant bastards out!
gcrozier
says...
2:10pm Thu 11 Feb 10
Once you take inflation into account the figures are even more stark - the Conservatives put council up by 20% in real terms over four years, the Lib Dems by less than 1%.
Of course the real problem is the government who give us such a rotten deal - just £150 per head in grant - the lowest in London.
Slightly oddly the Conservatives seem to be saying elsewhere that job cuts should be avoided, while calling here for bigger cuts. Any Conservatives able to clarify your position?
Phillip Taylor
says...
7:56pm Thu 11 Feb 10
TORIES INHERITED LIBERAL MESS
It was the appalling mess inherited by the Tories which made the tax increase necessary in the first place. It is no good Gcrozier failing to recognise his/her colleague Cllr Williams' view that someone else will pay for all this. The Liberals always overspend and then have to be helped by proper decision-making. Labour are just as bad which is while they are silent here.
ROTTEN DEAL? WHERE WERE THE LIBERALS?
On the deal with Central government, I think it was the complete failure by the local Liberal MPs to talk to the government which has led to such a bad settlement figure. They are a bad joke to Labour and irrelevant until it comes to another Lib/Lab pact, of course.
I am not a spokesman for the Tories, and I do not understand the muddled statement at the end of Gcrozier's letter.
The Tory position is straightforward- proper fiscal control. The Liberal position is spend, spend, spend and get someone else to cough up later, so vote Tory and kick out the Liberals
MacGregor
says...
9:11pm Thu 11 Feb 10
In 2002, the Lib Dems’ fiscal legacy to the incoming Conservative administration was a SIXTY MILLION POUND ‘black hole’, and what were described as “dangerously low” reserves. Indeed, if Richmond Council had been a private company it would have been on the brink of bankruptcy.
The incoming Conservative administration had no choice but to raise council tax, and build up reserves, and – in 2006 – reserves stood at £54m.
Having such reserves was an outrage to the “spend, spend, spend” Lib Dems, and it featured on their 2006 election literature as “unspent local taxes”. They promised – on the doorstep – to refund the electorate £750 each. However, on re-election they reneged on this promise, and their first act was to award councillors a pay rise.
Perhaps gcrozier, kew – who I presume is the Lib Dem council candidate of the same name – could explain why the Lib Dems never kept that 2006 election promise of refunding council tax – and why their previous definition of “unspent local taxes” doesn’t apply to the “at around £45m” that Cllr Knight calls “reserves”?
Phillip Taylor
says...
3:38am Fri 12 Feb 10
I have often wondered whether the attack on the 'reserves' policy and the 'promise' by the Liberals to give us money back would re-surface and I am glad it has because the electorate will now know that the Conservative Party is prudent as custodians of public money. The other parties are not, and they promise things they cannot deliver.
Phillip Taylor
MacGregor
says...
12:34am Sat 13 Feb 10
As you said so correctly – the Lib Dems promise what they can’t deliver. Check out their 2006 manifesto with this pledge of: “Genuine local consultation on services and proposals”. Yet that promise was broken when they tried to ignore the negative results to their proposal of concreting over part of Twickenham Riverside – causing people to dub their idea of consultation – CONsultation.
Indeed, this suggests their party name is in contravention of the Trade Descriptions Act. They appear neither ‘liberal’ – except with taxpayers’ money – nor ‘democratic’!
Phillip Taylor
says...
7:16am Sun 14 Feb 10
I realise we will be getting the list eventually much nearer 6th May, but it would be nice to know who the Liberals are fielding in view of this clear 'political' decision on the council tax freeze by the current Administration.
This would be so that we can question them on it before the actual campaigns start and get rid of any embarrasing questions (or answers) they may give us when they come looking for the vote.
Any offers from anyone?
Phillip Taylor
ChrisSquire
says...
2:47pm Sun 14 Feb 10
libdems.org.uk/pages
/wards.html, as I get them. You can read there who our new candidates for N & S Richmond, Kew and Mortlake will be - and Whitton, Hampton and Hampton N on the Middlesex side. I'm still waiting for the rest but they have all been chosen, I am told.
Will Philip Taylor, the man with an instant opinion on every issue under the sun, be standing again for the Tories, I wonder? They are certainly short of candidates: they have been reduced to taking them from the Richmond United Group in 2 wards - strange bedfellows indeed!
Chris Squire
Lib Dem webmaster
ChrisSquire
says...
4:40pm Sun 14 Feb 10
ratcatcher
says...
6:18pm Sun 14 Feb 10
I see its time to let their dog off his lead,you seem to come out to say the things the Libdems can't be seen to.
Thought you have had the push after you were caught with that nasty picture of a small boy on your web page.
Wondering which page you are working from today from
LIB-DEM Booklet
Effective Opposition
Lib Dem guide to campaigning: be wicked, act shamelessly, stir endlessly
There was a debate in the Commons last night on parliamentary standards, initiated by the Lib Dems. Their motion urged the government to "restore the trust of the British public ... in politics as a profession", but at one point the Tory frontbencher Shailesh Vara stylishly undermined his opponents with a few quotes from a Lib Dem strategy handbook.
The Lib Dems are famous for their effective/unprincipl
ed (depending on your viewpoint) campaigning, and Vara explained why:
Let us consider the idea of the Lib Dems talking about trust in British politics. On page 21 of their campaign document, Effective Opposition, produced by the Association of Liberal Democrat Councillors, it says:
"Be wicked, act shamelessly, stir endlessly."
On page 23, it says:
"Don't be afraid to exaggerate. For example, responses to surveys and petitions are always 'massive'. If a council is doing something badly public expressions are always of 'outrage'."
And on page 4, it states:
"Positive campaigning will NOT be enough to win control of the council."
Just be careful remember last time
you took a fall and their was no one to catch you !.
Phillip Taylor
says...
7:23pm Sun 14 Feb 10
There will be plenty of other good Tories to answer your points as you like to stir things up regularly as ratcatcher says.
At least we know the motley crew your side are fielding this time round and I assume the Tories have published their list as it has appeared in their literature since last year so there is no secret about who the candidates are as they have been working hard for a long time to beat your lot.
Let's face it, Chris, the Liberals are heading for a big defeat in Richmond in May...and it's well deserved- again!
Phillip Taylor
Julie Hill
says...
12:53pm Mon 15 Feb 10
RUG welcomes the fact that three highly respected members have decided to stand against the dictatorial "Liberal Democrats" and their rotten undemocratic policies and bogus CONsultations. Who knows, RUG may even field its own candidates.
Oh and don't worry - the candidates have already declared their intention to stand. RUG operates openly, honestly and transparently.
Barry Edwards
says...
6:04pm Fri 19 Feb 10
I really think you should at least try and have a proper debate, instead of just insulting fellow residents. There are a lot of us that belief you have something useful to say, but I think you have been taking the LibDem “pills” for to long!!
Richmond United Group is a conglomeration of well respected local community groups who support a resident first approach. I know that does not fit in to the authoritarian LibDem mentality, but you should respect the opinions of others. A colleague of yours Steve Topol has also been making strange remarks in the press and I have replied to his comment within this week’s letters page.
Chris, we all know now about the “Effective Opposition” booklet, it is no longer a secret it is visible and the more you criticize other people, the less people will think of you. Cllr. Lourie, Knight, Carr, Wilson, Elengorn etc have also been asked to fight the election on policies and stop being rude to other parties and residents. It will be far easier for the Conservatives to win if you continue to behave in such a rash manner and continue to display the same flawed judgement that led to the disgusting use of an image of a child on the LibDem website.
Chris, please do yourself and everyone else a favour, by showing some respect for others.
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Julie Hill says...
12:21pm Wed 10 Feb 10
This deeply unpopular undemocratic and dictatorial Administration continued to increase the LBRuT Council tax when other Councils were freezing or reducing theirs, so they have enjoyed the additional coffers for considerable time.
Roll on May 6th and let's vote for honesty, integrity, democracy and a new type of Council that honestly wants to engage with the electorate.
Check this out:
www.richmondunitedgr
oup.com