Wednesday, 5 October 2011


Not even on the same galaxy - by Richard... Wednesday, October 05, 2011

I said we should ignore him, and when he comes up with this mad idea - that we should all rush out and pay off our debts … jusslikethat - my original judgement was correct.

Of far more importance, in the short and longer term is the fact that our masters are taking us for fools – and to date, they have been getting away with it. But if there is one thing I seriously do not like, it them up there, above the line, thinking they can do this in perpetuity.

The proximate cause of my ire is the implications of my work earlier yesterday, which makes a mockery ofMassa George's promise that Council Tax will be frozen next year.

That may or may not be the case, but what it does not mean is that local authority income is to be curtailed. Rather, it means that officials will be more inventive in devising and expanding the range of fees and charges they can impose, to the extent these indirect "stealth" taxes are assuming a greater importance than Council Tax.

Looking at direct local taxes – as in Council Tax and before that the rates – it is very clear that these have doubled since local government reorganisation in 1973. But, if it is taken that indirect taxes at that time were negligible and are now matching or exceeding the direct taxes, our overall local tax burden has not doubled but quadrupled.

Then taking a baseline of about £750 in 1973 (after deducing water rates and adjusting for inflation), a middle-class home owner might now expect to remit to the council, in one form or another, and average of £3,000 a year – representing an increase of over £2,000 since 1973. And, since these taxes are paid out of taxed income, most will need to earn about £3,000 more to pay the extra.

This actually represents a staggering cash grab, all the more remarkable that it has slipped under the radar. All of us are aware of the increasing burden of local authority charges – but I had not idea so much was involved. No wonder councils can afford so many sustainability officers. They are raking it in.

And there we have the ultimate madness. Local and central taxes are increasing, inflation is increasing, incomes are reducing and the food lines are lengthening. So The Boy's "big idea" is to urge households today to pay off their personal debts. This is beyond barking mad. He's not even on the same galaxy.

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The Greed Index - by Richard... Tuesday, October 04, 2011


Following on from our piece last Saturday, the results from the survey of summons and liability orders are extremely slow in coming in. We know that there are at least fifty requests pending, and more are being sent out each day, but it would appear that councils are making the most of the time allowed them (20 working days) to respond.

Some of the councils which have answered have sent the wrong information. Other give incomplete information and one has even said it holds no records. Thus, follow-up requests are having to be made, further slowing down the process of information gathering. We have also been told that some councils are extremely suspicious of this exercise, (rightly) fearing that it is going to cause problems for them.

Despite all that, though, it is worth putting up what we have – eighteen verified results so far – assembled in the form of a ranking which we are calling the "Greed Index".

To achieve this ranking, what we have done is take the total sum charged by each council for their Council Tax summonses and liability orders in the financial year 2010/11, and divided it by the number of households. That reflects the number of summonses and orders sent, the charge levels and the size of the council.

Conveniently, the resultant figure represents the average surcharge, over and above the authorised Council Tax level. It effectively measures the size of the council stealth tax, and the amount it would have to add on to the Council Tax to maintain current spending, if it was prevented from stealing the money through this route.

With the fifteen results we have in, Bradford remains at the top of the league, both in absolute and relative terms, issuing the largest number of summonses and leading the "Greed Index", its "take" still seven times higher than the cheapest borough (Stroud).

Some might argue that the people who end up paying this surcharge deserve what they get, and that the fees simply represent the additional costs to the councils in recovering their council tax. But here, there are several points to make.

Firstly, whether the idea of surcharging late payers is a good one, or not, there is not provision for it in law. To do so is simply illegal, and no council should knowingly and actively break the law in order to fill its coffers – or at all.

Secondly, there is already a substantial penalty built into the system as late payers lose their rights to pay by instalments. Perversely, therefore, most "late payers" actually end up remitting the bulk of their tax earlier than those who pay on time, but via instalments.

Thirdly, the actual marginal costs of collecting from late payers is low – representing only a few pounds, at most. And that is more then compensated for by the interest earned from getting the money in early – compared with earnings from instalments.

The real issue though is that, since local government reorganisation in 1973, local authority taxes have effectively doubled … and some. A local reader recently came across his father's records for his house, showing the rates charged in 1973 at £92 (£830, adjusted for inflation). Now the same house attracts a charge of £1,570.

However, that is only the half of it. In 1973, water rates (at the equivalent of £120) were part of the bill. Many services, from planning applications to building regulation approval and the dog pound, were either free or charged at a nominal price. Some domestic drain clearance and pest control was free of charge. And the court cost for a summon was set at 70p.

As well as all that, in 2009, local councils raised £1.9 billion from parking fees and fines. Back in 1973, parking meters outside central London were a rarity and parking fines went to the Treasury.

The scale of fees and charges is, to the general public, largely unrecognised. But even in the 2007Lyons Report on local government, it was reported that fees and charges had become a significant source of income. Then, over a quarter of all councils raised more money this way than they did from Council Tax. Now, as council squeeze the pips for every penny of revenue, it is likely that even more money is coming in from fees and charges.

Thus, while we are familiar with headline Council Tax rates, which are watched very closely, councils have been creeping in the back door, pulling down huge sums which have largely escaped public (and media) attention. It is these - as much as the direct taxation - which have fuelled council spending habits.

This hidden taxation is in small part measured by the "Greed Index" we have devised, but the one charge represented is only an indicator – and not necessarily good enough. However, we will continue with it, and see where it takes us. But we will also work on a more comprehensive index for next year.

And, for the record, we have a revised question:
Please could you supply information on the number of Summonses and Liability Orders issued by the Council in respect of Council Tax, for each of the financial years since April 1992 (or from when records are available) to the present, itemised separately by year and document type, and the total fees charged for each year (specifically for the two documents – NOT the Council Tax), again itemised separately by year and document type. Could you also please specify the charges for Council Tax summonses and liability orders for each of the years.
If you have not yet tasked your local authority with this, under the Freedom of Information Act, please do so - all it takes is an e-mail. We would like to see where your council stands in the Greed Index.

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Reporting the news - by Richard...


… as it doesn't happen. Max Farquar has a beauty … right down to the reference to the "media scum" (spool down on the link). Look at the quotes from the article, says Max, that the Daily Failclaims the prosecution team made as soon as the "guilty" verdict was announced.


"Prosecutors", says the paper, "were delighted with the verdict and said 'Justice has been done' although they said on a "human factor it was sad two young people would be spending years in jail". Only, Amanda Knox wasn't guilty. Therefore, the prosecution can't possibly have issued those quotes. "What's that you say? " Max asks. "The Daily Mail must have made the quotes up?"

At least the paper got the description of the media right though.

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Shaping the agenda - by Richard...

The Progressive Contrarian has the bitbetween his teeth, suggesting issues that might be suitable for exploration via Freedom of Information requests. Helpfully, he provides e-mail links for the London Boroughs, so it really takes no more than a click, and you have a whole world of pain opening up before you.

On our forum (link below), there is a healthy discussion going on about how politicians can be made accountable, and FOI questions is one mechanism. At the very least, it tells politicians and officials that they are being watched. And, used intelligently, it yields real insight into how we are governed.

The FOI system is one I personally have been slow to exploit – but that is only because my preferred medium until fairly recently has been the Parliamentary Question. And we can also see the limitations of the system as Bradford MDC seeks to block questions which really get to the nub of an issue. That one will run and run, and is possibly headed for the Information Commissioner, who has a recent record of delivering the goods - the Bolton Council affair having set something of a precedent on naming names.

This goes to something Autonomous Mind and I are very keen on – that blogs should do more to set their own agenda. We are prone to complain about the venality of the MSM and the political classes, but then spend much of our life energy following the agendas they set.

In truth, the blogosphere will not come truly of age until we take more of the initiative. LikeWitterings from Witney, we do not have to accept the received wisdom, when we have a perfectly adequate voice of our own. For instance, the Tory europlastic agenda started by Autonomous Mindis nicely retailed by TBF, now with over 5,000 mentions on Google, but none in an MSM which still believes that there is such a thing as a Tory eurosceptic.

With that, we as bloggers have shown that it is possible to shape an independent agenda. The FOI system allows our readers to do likewise. You call it, we'll publish it. We are, as someone keeps trying to convince us, all in this together.

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Can we leave the EU? - by Richard...

Posted by Britannia Radio at 07:04