But Labour councillor accuses Tory administration of wasting millions of pounds
Hammersmith and Fulham Council has announced that council tax is set to fall by 3.75% in 2012, and says the reduction is due in part to the fact that services are being combined with neighbouring authorities.
It is the fifth year out of six that council tax bills will come down, and it will take the council tax level to the third lowest in the country.
H & F says it also on course to cut its historic debt from £176 million to a projected £94 million by the end of the next financial year, saving local taxpayers £7.1 million in debt repayments every year.
The planned tax cut, which still has to be ratified by H&F’s Full Council in February, comes as H&F, Westminster City Council and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC) are combining services in many areas, including children’s services, adult social care and library services. H&F already shares a Chief Executive with RBKC, along with some other environmental services.
The council says while planning to cut tax, it is intending to freeze parking charges, keep all its libraries open, maintain weekly or even twice-weekly refuse collection and plough £1.3 million into extra town centre police. It is also one of just two councils in London offering homecare to people in the "greater moderate" as well as " substantial" or "critical" banding.
To drive home its point, H&F has produced a video called Threedom, extolling the virtues of its tax cutting programme, which can be viewed on YouTube.
Cllr Stephen Greenhalgh, the Leader of H&F, says: "Combining services, management, overhead costs and expertise across councils is not only leading to better services in many areas, it is ensuring that taxpayers are enjoying some of the lowest council tax bills in the country.
" Whilst the cost of living continues to rise, we are proud to be putting money back in the wallets of our local taxpayers and we are proud to be protecting frontline services."
The announcement however was received with scorn by Steven Cowan, Leader of H & F's Labour Group of Councillor, who accused H&F Conservatives of being "like an octopus that gives with one arm but rifles through your pockets and takes your money with its seven others."
On his blog, The Cowan Report, he says: " Early, on their Administration introduced nearly 600 new or higher inflation busting stealth taxes. The Telegraph have put them on their List of Parking Shame for, until this year, introducing nearly 60% hikes in charges in a single year; elderly and disabled people now pay £12.40 an hour if they need home care; and even introduced new charges this year for people who want to use a personal trainer in our parks.
" The real mission for H&F Conservatives should be how can they genuinely put more money back into the pockets of hard pressed households up and down the Borough.
" Consider that roughly £600,000 is equivalent to a 1% council tax cut in this Borough, It’s therefore easy to understand the scope for further cuts if you look at what our money has been wasted on in recent years. Here’s a list:
"Wasted £35million on the unwanted Hammersmith Town Hall office scheme by handing over expensive council owned land and paying for much of the work undertaken by officials and professionals.
"Wasted up to £12million on employing unnecessary consultants that the council admitted were paid despite many no longer doing any necessary work for the council.
" Wasted £5million a year on what a leading Tory MP said was 'political propaganda on the rates'.
Giving senior bureaucrats 16% salary rises and, at an average of £220,000 a year and therefore employing the highest paid senior council bureaucrats in the UK.
"They even admitted wasting £250,000.00 because they failed to turn the lights off in the Town Hall extension."
Hammersmith MP Andy Slaughter meanwhile says that Hammersmith and Fulham Council are cutting the borough’s Sure Start budget by 45% – the second deepest cuts in the country when compared with other boroughs.
He adds: " Analysis of the funding arrangements for the sixteen centres in the borough revealed that ten of the centres will receive less than £25,000 per year as of April 2012. Under the current funding arrangements, the Wendell Park Family Centre received £62,500 in the first quarter of this financial year – the equivalent of £250,000 for the year. The funding earmarked for the 2012-2013 financial year is just 10% of that figure at £25,000.
" There is a similar story at Shepherd’s Bush Families Project and Children’s Centre. Whereas the current funding arrangement allocated £62,500 in the first quarter of this financial year, just £5000 per quarter is allocated thereafter. The substantial cuts to funding will mean that nine out of the fifteen centres currently open will no longer be able to operate as Sure Start centres as the services they are offering do not fulfil the legal criteria.
" What these figures show is that the Council is quite happy to leave Sure Start centres hanging by a thread as long as they don’t have to face up to the consequences of slashing funding."
December 15, 2011
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