18 February - 25% Council Tax increase for the not well off
Continuing the Finance Committee report, a discomforted Cabinet Member David Leaf spoke of his Council Tax Reduction scheme whereby
people of working age on low incomes pay less Council Tax. How much less is a
decision for individual Councils and there is no Nationally imposed formula.
Councillor Leaf had fallen back on a
Consultation which asked questions ranging over several different levels of less
generous support with the alternative of making no change. Each of them received similar levels of
support - around 20% in favour of reductions - with the ‘do nothing’ְ option attracting 50% support.
The Labour Group
had submitted an objection which was disregarded. Councillor Chris Ball (Erith) thought the decision was “fundamentally wrong. Some people will
be paying around a third more. Some people are earning less than a Councillor
receives as an allowance are being asked to pay an extra sixty to one hundred
pounds a year”. [This paragraph is an amalgam of several comments made at various times.]
Councillor Leaf had decided reluctantly “that everyone on the scheme will need to pay 5%
more in terms of their Council Tax”. This translates to those with between £151
and £201 a week of disposable income go from paying 20% of Council Tax to paying
25%; an increase of 25% to their level of taxation. It is disappointing that we
have a Cabinet Member for Resources with such a poor grasp of numeracy. (The
percentage increase varies in line with income but never falls below 7%.)
His excuse that the National Living Wage had been increased will probably not
cut much ice with those affected.
Residents with an income between £201 and £251 a week after basic deductions who used to pay nothing
will now be on the 5% rate. Around £110 for Band D at the 2025/26 rate.
Councillor Steven Hall (Conservative, East Wickham) asked Councillor Leaf to identify the mitigations to
which he had referred in his report. He came up with the indexation of
various benefit payments and free child care. I think it is fair to say that a
less than happy Cabinet Member was floundering and not unaware of the hurt his decision will
inflict. The lost Council Tax amounted to about £9 million.
Council June Slaughter (Conservative, Sidcup) asked what other Councils had
done. Councillor Leaf only knew that many London Councils had consulted and Greenwich was set
to impose a considerably bigger reduction in support than Bexley.
Councillor Ball asked why the number of claimants was falling and why the
Consultation response which was “overwhelmingly against change” was ignored.
“Why does the Cabinet Member think he is right and everyone else wrong? [While
acknowledging the slightly provocative shorthand…] Why does he know best?”
He was told that higher earning led to fewer claims and the Covid peak had
reduced. The Council could not afford to give away £9 million.
Councillor Stefano Borella (Labour, Slade Green) thought it was unfair that compensation
paid to military veterans was treated as income and might push recipients into
paying more Council Tax. The Cabinet Member said that was not a change.
Stefano revealed that there were only 73 respondents to the Consultation and a
lot more could have been done to inform residents. Cabinet Member Leaf said it
was not practical or cost effective to notify all Council Tax Payers and people
tended to ignore Council emails.