James Barlow

Frankly I find political conferences extraordinarily dull, and given the opportunity I'd just as soon bunk off, stay at home and play on the Xbox 360. But this year we're actually getting some interesting stuff coming out of the party gatherings.

Last week, in Manchester, Bristol City Council Leader Helen Holland announced plans to get some cash of Whitehall (note - your cash) to pay for a Congestion Charging scheme for Bristol, and then tax you for the pleasure of coming to Bristol to do your job, spend money in the shops and visit your family and friends.

And today, Shadow Chancellor George Osbourne had some interesting things to say about Council taxation. He didn't actually say them in an interesting fashion, as the art of rhetoric seems to have died sometime back around the late eighties, but I digress.

It is the aspiration and ambition of this Party that we leave office with taxes lower than when we came in. [...] Before we can cut taxes we have to stop taxes rising. The whole country is having to tighten its belt and save money. So too should their government. In the private sector when times are tough you take out the overheads. The consultants are sent packing and the advertising budget is cut. Government should do the same.

We are going to put caps on Labour's wasteful consultancy and advertising bills. So that we can make this announcement to you, today. The country may not be able to afford upfront tax cuts because borrowing is too high. But families facing the squeeze cannot afford tax rises either. We are going into partnership with local councils. If they find matching savings in their town hall, we will give them these savings from Whitehall.

I can tell you today that the next Conservative Government will freeze your Council Tax for at least two years. Every council tax bill of every family in every council that takes part will be frozen.

Instead of council tax bills that rise year after year under Labour, millions of families will get help at the time they need it most. Conservatives will not leave people to struggle with the credit crunch alone. We will not walk on by. That's not what Conservatives do.

Now that's more goddamn like it. I'm not sure if it will actually work in practice, as previous attempts at rate capping in this country have had mixed results, but it's the thought that counts. Nil desperandum, however - this city and its people do need a cut in council tax and to get it, all you need to do is vote Conservative locally. We can make this happen.

I'd actually go a step further than the Londoners - I certainly don't need them to tell me about the importance of removing the burden of local taxation; my view is that Bristol should set a zero rate of council tax for Band A households. Yes, you read that right - a council tax bill of zero pounds and zero pence.

The absolute reduction in revenue by the Council would be in the region of £21-25 million (i.e. around 13-15% of the total take from council tax), although since a large percentage of these properties are heavily discounted, refusers or in receipt of benefits, the cost is likely to be much lower. Houses occupied by the disabled and their carers are downgraded one band, so this estimate includes many band B properties.

The budget cuts to support a zero rate on Band A properties would be significant, but not as visible as you might think. A great deal of time and energy is spent by council staff collecting money from those on low incomes, and giving it straight back to them minus a bureaucratic overhead; collecting tax is a surprisingly expensive business.

More details to follow. If you're in a Band B property or above, the best I'd be willing to offer in the short term is an inflationary-only increase in your Council Tax. Not palatable, I accept, but it's a start. With a bit of further research, I reckon I could construct an absolute freeze in council tax rates above Band A, and stitch the London-crowd up for some of these "matching savings" they're talking about.

Back at the end of last year, I had a quick look through Bristol's proposed budget for 2008/09.

These were the main figures for the proposed budget, and this year's increase in the authority's precept of the council tax (4.85%) was calculated from that figure. These were the headline figures (Click here if you're a feed subscriber):

Now, finally, the Budget Book for 2008/2009 is available. And the figures are dramatically different:

Now if you look at the final line, you'll see that the amount of money required in Council Tax is unchanged. But, the actual revenue budget of the council has increased by 7.8% from £327,865,000 to £353,128,000

You may be wondering how it's possible that the council had decided it needs an extra £25 million quid and yet has decided not to raise council tax. Well that's easy. It's a six stage process:

1. Flog off the family silver (£9.6 million)
2. Spend anything leftover from last year (£3.6m on the pie charts, £2.6m on the spreadsheets)
3. Check down the back of the sofa for any loose change (£13 grand)
4. Borrow from the bank
5. Cut your contingency budget and hope nothing goes wrong (£1.2 million)
6. Get London to bail you out with grants (paid for by central taxation and central borrowing)

More research is needed to understand the grant funding changes, but there's one thing that really stands out: every single council department increased their requirements between the Draft proposals in December and the final Budget. Every single one. Putting aside all the financial jiggery-pokery, £49 million was added to the budget between December and May. The Chief Executive's department alone increased the proposed spend by practically 50% from £14m to £20m.

More to follow, but for the moment consider this. Every single Bristolian - man, woman and child - now has a debt hanging around their neck of £964.40 due to local authority borrowing.

The unelected Chair of the Avon and Somerset Police Authority has announced a rise in the price of policing by 4.86% this year. So, updating a previous post, these are the forecast Council Tax bands for Bristol:

The Cabinet of the City of Bristol is meeting today (Mon 4th Feb), with a large element of the meeting relating to the City's Budget for 08/09.

The PDF versions of the budget proposals (Revenue & Capital) are available from the Council website, and an Excel version of the Revenue Budget is available from this blog:

http://www.jamesbarlow.co.uk/files/draftbccbudgetjmbv1.xls

Key points for Council Tax Payers:

• UK Inflation is either 2.1% (CPI) or 4.0% (RPI) depending on which statistic you prefer.
• The total revenue budget for Bristol is forecast to be £327,900,000.00
• The grant from Central Government (your money) is £158,145,000.00
• The net requirement from taxpayers (also your money) is forecast to be £167,120,000.00
• The Taxbase (see here) is forecast to be 131,384 households
• For Council services (excluding Police & Fire) a Band D household will pay £1272.00, a rise of exactly 4% on last year's figure.

An interesting point here - just from the growth in new households in Bristol, the council would have netted an extra £3.5 million in council tax receipts at last year's prices. One would think that, given the economies of scale associated with buying services for 403,000 people, one of these days we would actually get a real or even absolute reduction in the growth of tax rates. Well, not this year.

Avon Fire Authority had a think about budgets at their January 11th meeting, and they want £44,835,000 which will add 4.72% to the Council Tax bill. New figure? Around £56.15 for a Band D property. This is with an anticipated increase in the (Area) Taxbase of 1.2% from around 355,614 to 359,800. No economies of scale there either.

Avon & Somerset Police and have yet to release a forecast for the next financial year. Last year they raised their prices by 6.7% to £147.17 for a Band D property, with the following comment from the unelected chair of the Police Authority:

Those living in a Band D house in Avon and Somerset will pay around 40 pence a day in their council tax towards policing – that's way less than the cost of a loaf of bread.

I wonder if they'll be making that comparison this year? You can actually get a sliced, white own-brand loaf for 37 pence at Tesco, although the average price is nearer a pound.

Given that the Police have actually underspent in Bristol by £383,000 in the current year, one would hope we would get a bit of a discount this time. If we assume the Police manage to keep their increase to 4.0%, the new Band D price will be £153.06 (up by £5.89), which is - per head - less than the city spends on rubbish.

The forecast Council Tax figures for Bristol? Brace yourself:

If you can't make it to the meeting, remember you can watch it online with the Public-I webcasting system. Make the effort, guys - it's your money and your city.

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