The Telegraph reports today that inflation will reach 5%. With an interest rate cut, you could expect that. The reason I point this out in this news cycle to trump all news cycles is that we’ve recently been lobbying council leaders to advocate an absolute freeze in council tax rates or at best a council tax cut.
Some of the responses we're already hearing are the same old “we’ll keep increases as low as possible” or “we’ll increase council tax in line with inflation”. Aha! See the problem for councils who want to hike tax in line with inflation comes when inflation exceeds 5% because the government have threatened to cap any council tax increase at 5%.
The choice therefore is between councils cutting non-essential spending, reining in the growth of their middle management and politically correct non-jobbers or playing the blame game, scaremongering about frontline service cuts and accusing the government of not supplying enough of a grant. Given the track record of our esteemed Town Hall establishment, what option do you think they will take?
I make this point to stress the important of our lobbying campaign to get councils to cut back before cutting into our pay packets with their extreme taxes. Please do get writing and contacting your councillors to keep up the fight against high council tax. You can join in our grassroots lobby here and here.