West Lothian Council has set its council tax for the next year at 5.8 per cent, with likely the same level for another two years before the promises of a review.
It’s a bold strategy, and one of the highest set so far in the country. Labour argued it is vital to preserve services.
But the Conservative group which backed it did so with a caution for the Labour led administration that their support wouldn’t stretch to two years.
The SNP’s Councillor Willie Boyle warned: “This will come back to haunt you.”
Depute group leader for the SNP Councillor Robert De Bold told Tuesday’s budget meeting the measures had been forced on local government by the austerity policies coming from Westminster. He praised the local Labour group for presenting a budget, where their colleagues in Glasgow had not.
He added: “The Labour budget demands an astonishing back to back 5.8 per cent council tax in two years that’s a whopping cumulative 12 per cent. Over four years that’s 22.2 per cent. “
Councillor Andrew McGuire expressed surprise at Councillor Boyle’s indignation at the 5.8 per cent tax increase and asked what he thought of his SNP colleagues in Glasgow last week who put council tax up 5 per cent.
Councillor McGuire added: “We didn’t hear anything about that.
“Perhaps we wouldn’t have had to put council tax up at all if the SNP had committed as they did in 2007 to abolish the unfair council tax. Yet here we are 15 years later with the tax nowhere to be seen to be abolished.”
Councillor Kirsteen Sullivan, depute Labour group leader said: “ The SNP amendment leaves services staff and communities at a cliff edge in 26/27 with an increased budget gap. It will also leave many residents worse off this coming year introducing a £35 charge for brown bins whilst the difference in council tax rise between four per cent and 5.8 per cent is actually £31.09 for properties up to and including Band D.
“It’s cheaper for many people to have a 5.8 per cent rise and no brown bin charge than to vote for the (SNP) proposal put forward today.”
Councillor Sullivan added: “What we cannot be is treated solely as a service delivery vehicle at the expense of local needs. A point made by Susan Aitken, the SNP council leader in Glasgow.”
Conservative Group Leader, Damian Doran-Timson who had already commiserated with the Labour Provost Cathy Muldoon on the “Groundhog Day” repetition of blaming cuts on Westminster also put Labour members on notice that support for the 5.8 per cent rise was qualified.
Councillor Doran-Timson told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “It is deeply disappointing to have to make the cuts to services and increase council tax to the levels we have in this year’s budget, but this is down to the underfunding of West Lothian Council by the SNP Scottish Government, year after year they cut council funding, despite receiving increased funding from the Conservative UK Government.
“ We heard at the budget meeting how millions of pounds that came to Scotland through Barnett Education consequentials have not been passed on by the Scottish Government.”
“This is a disgrace.”
He added: “I want to reassure the residents of West Lothian, that whilst we had little choice in supporting this year’s council tax increase, the Conservative Group on West Lothian Council will not support such an increase next year.”
There are 81,052 chargeable dwellings in West Lothian. There are a range of mitigations in place and 13,953 households are in receipt of a council tax reduction. Of those 11,279 are in receipt of a 100 per cent reduction.
In Band D, taken as the average, there are 9,112 properties, which account for 11 per cent of the total. Of those, 2,994 are in receipt of some kind of exemption or reduction.
For Band D the tax rise will be £76.25 a year, from £1,314.71 to £1,390.96. That equates to a monthly increase of £6.35 and weekly of £1.47.
The 5.8 per cent rise will mean an annual increase of between £186.81 for those in Band H and £50.84 in Band A.
An extra 900 houses per year are assumed to be built so that could mean 4,500 extra homes paying council tax in five years time.
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