With Council Tax bills landing on doorsteps soon, John sets out the background to local government spending in Essex.
I am often asked why, when inflation is only around 2.5 per cent, the average Council Tax for a band D property in Maldon and Chelmsford has gone up from around £640 in 1997 to around £1,100 this year. One of the main reasons for this is that the proportion of local government’s spending financed by central Government has fallen over the past six years, meaning that the amount that has to be raised by council tax has gone up. At the same time, the Government has redirected money away from councils in the South East towards councils in the Midlands and North. This has hit Essex particularly hard so that last year, the County Council received the lowest grant settlement of any County Council in the country.
While the amount of money that Essex gets from the Government has been squeezed, our local councils have had to meet a raft of extra burdens and regulations that have been imposed upon them. Over 2,000 initiatives, strategies and partnerships involving local authorities have been created. Meanwhile, councils have also had to pay more for each of their employees due to the increase in National Insurance contributions as well as paying more to provide pensions for former employees due to the Government’s Pension Fund tax. Many people are now struggling to meet their Council Tax bills, with pensioners being especially hard hit. I will continue to campaign for a fairer settlement for our county and, in the longer term, for the whole system of local government finance to be looked at again.
