Raynsford threatens councils with capping
Local Government Minister Nick Raysnford has put councils on notice and threatened to use capping powers if ‘unreasonable’ council tax increases are proposed.
Giving details of this year’s local government settlement, Mr Raynford said he had “rigorously applied” the principle of ensuring that central government fully funded the local implications of central policy initiatives – a key complaint of local government organisations in the past.
As an example, he said the Government had “more than doubled” its contributions to the civil protection fund, bearing in mind the continuing security situation.
He also said the Government was committed to giving councils “substantial freedom” in their spending, claiming that the amount of the Government grant that had been ring-fenced had been substantially reduced to nine per cent of the total grant.
Ring-fencing is where the Government specifies in advance what exactly the money has been spent on.
Bearing this in mind, he warned local councils that “there is no excuse for excessive council tax rises” and said he expected them to be “substantially” below last year’s level.
Mr Raynsford said the Government would continue to use capping powers if necessary and was prepared to “to take even tougher action” than last year against any authority – including police and fire authorities.
In terms of help for pensioners, the Minister said that letters on claiming council tax benefit would be included with this year’s letters on the winter fuel payment and that the Government would look at streamlining the claims process for when more than one benefit is applied for.
Stressing that every council had received a decent central grant, Mr Raynsford said Labour had shown its “continued commitment to local government” and that in return “we expect, and all taxpayers expect, that local government will continue to provide improving services at a reasonable cost.”
Councils will also be urged to make significant efficiency gains as part of the overall efficiently drive, he added. Central government is expecting £6.45 billion of efficiency gains from local government, though Mr Raynsford said he believed greater amounts were possible.
Ed Pickles, the Conservative local government spokesman said, however, that the ‘small print’ of the settlement suggested that council tax would soar.
He said: “The small print of Gordon Brown’s report reveals that the council tax take across Britain is due soar by a massive £1.6 billion this year – equivalent to four times the rate of inflation.
“Council tax has already shot up by 70 per cent since 1997, and it is clear it is going to through the roof for yet another year. All we’ve seen today is another ploy by Government to increase the tax take on Britain by stealth.”
Schools Standards Minister David Miliband welcomed the education settlement saying it amounted to more than £60 billion and a national average increase of 6.9 per cent per pupil.
He also promised that the settlements would be received in full by each authority except in “wholly exceptional circumstances”.
Mr Miliband said: “This is a good settlement for schools, giving them continued stability in their funding in 2005-06.” He added: “The settlement ensures that every local education authority has sufficient resources to passport the increases to schools in full next year, and the Government is making clear its expectation that every authority will do so.”
David Hart, who heads the teachers’ union the NAHT, said his union would be pressing to ensure all schools received their allocated money. He said: “We will be particularly targeting the large number of Local Authorities that are underspending on their primary schools and which are accordingly robbing those schools of large amounts of urgently needed resources.”
