No rise in Hyndburn's share of council tax (From Blackburn Citizen)
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No rise in Hyndburn's share of council tax
6:00pm Wednesday 6th March 2013 in News
COUNCILLORS have approved a budget which will see Hyndburn’s council tax frozen for the next financial year.
At the full meeting of Hyndburn Council, leader Coun Miles Parkinson also announced Hyndburn’s element of the council tax bill was not expected to rise for the next two years.
The budget, formally approved at Accrington Town Hall, has a capital programme of more than £6.3m, including more than £4m to support renovation in Woodnook and improvement of poor housing stock across Hyndburn.
Coun Parkinson said: “In these difficult economic times we don’t want to add to the pressure Hyndburn people are already experiencing and so there will be no rise in the Hyndburn element of council tax.
“This is the second year we haven’t increased it and we expect to be able to maintain no increases for the next two years.”
He said despite the financial pressures, money has been set aside to assist the most needy to help deal with the major changes in council tax benefits.
A Lancashire scheme to help the victims of domestic violence has also been assisted.
Hyndburn Council has made more than £1.2m of savings.
Comments(2)
Cllr Ken Moss
says...
3:32pm Fri 8 Mar 13
As Chair of the Resources Overview and Scrutiny Committee is is my job to look at budget proposals to see that they are viable before they are presented to Full Council. During the debates I did point out that it is very difficult to scrutinise something which hasn't actually been written.
Cllr Britcliffe was full of scorn for the Labour and Independent proposals and appeared to cite inaccurate figures regarding current Council reserves. A full breakdown of the Council's financial position including up to date figures is updated every month at the Cabinet meetings, the minutes of which can be found online at the HBC website.
Cllr Britcliffe has repeatedly stated that reserves should be used to cut Council Tax but this still leaves the problem of what to do the following year to plug the hole in the budget. It is not financially sound to keep taking from reserves instead of budgeting properly, as within a few short years the cupboards are bare.
The Labour group are currently using parts of financial savings to reduce the debt left by Cllr Britcliffe's administration. This in itself is a big help in keeping monthly interest outgoings under control and preventing tax rises.
Tax cuts are actually quite unwise at this time as in order to raise the revenue required in future years the tax rises will have to be much higher. The price that residents will have to pay for tax cuts before an election is not a nice one.
I cite Lancashire County Council's tax cut that precedes the County elections in May. Sooner or later the LCC portion of Council tax will have to increase significantly in order to compensate for that lost revenue. Bear in mind that the same lost revenue from the tax cut will also have to be accounted for next year and the year after, etc.
I find Cllr Britcliffe's comments extremely lazy politicking when he seemingly could not be bothered submitting proper proposals of his own.
mavrick says...
6:55pm Wed 6 Mar 13