By Tash Shifrin
20 August 2009
All 12 local councils in Surrey have protested against the government’s capping of the police authority budget and the requirement to rebill their residents.
Surrey Police Authority sought a judicial review of then local government minister John Healey’s March announcement that it would be capped for the second year running – but the courts rejected the move.
The county council and Surrey’s 11 district and borough councils have all protested at the £1.2m cost of sending out new bills – a process that is now under way.
The cost will be funded from the operational policing reserve budget. The capping decision will also create a £1.6m budget gap. SPA said this had resulted in an immediate cut of 48 frontline posts, while planned cuts of 24 posts due in 2011/12 will be brought forward a year.
Surrey County Council leader Andrew Povey said: ‘This capping action fails the common sense test and lacks financial logic. In the current economic climate, you would be very hard pressed to find anyone who thinks that spending £1.2m on administrative costs to give back £1.6m to Surrey council tax payers, or six pence a week for an average household, is sensible when it leads to the loss of nearly 50 posts.
‘Clearly, this cannot be viewed as a reasonable use of public funds.’
At Epsom and Ewell Borough Council, strategy and resources vice-chair Eber Kington criticised the government for forcing SPA ‘to waste council tax payers’ money’.
He added: ‘It cannot be right that council tax payers’ money is used on the expensive bureaucratic exercise of rebilling, estimated to be over £1m. A Band D council tax payer will get back £3.24 for the year, but the rebilling will cost about £2.80 per council tax payer.’
SPA chair Peter Williams added: ‘We have argued that the process of capping – where authorities are not told of the limits they are expected to work within until after they have set their budgets and issued bills – makes it impossible for authorities to plan their budgets with any certainty.’
Healey said SPA would be capped because it had set a 2009/10 budget increase of 4.82% and a precept increase of 7.07%. But the police authority argued that its precept increased only by 4.89% on the precept charged in 2008/09 – below the 5% capping threshold.
The government’s 7.07% figure had been produced by comparing its 2009/10 precept with ‘the artificial construct of a notional precept figure’, SPA said.
20 August 2009
All 12 local councils in Surrey have protested against the government’s capping of the police authority budget and the requirement to rebill their residents.
Surrey Police Authority sought a judicial review of then local government minister John Healey’s March announcement that it would be capped for the second year running – but the courts rejected the move.
The county council and Surrey’s 11 district and borough councils have all protested at the £1.2m cost of sending out new bills – a process that is now under way.
The cost will be funded from the operational policing reserve budget. The capping decision will also create a £1.6m budget gap. SPA said this had resulted in an immediate cut of 48 frontline posts, while planned cuts of 24 posts due in 2011/12 will be brought forward a year.
Surrey County Council leader Andrew Povey said: ‘This capping action fails the common sense test and lacks financial logic. In the current economic climate, you would be very hard pressed to find anyone who thinks that spending £1.2m on administrative costs to give back £1.6m to Surrey council tax payers, or six pence a week for an average household, is sensible when it leads to the loss of nearly 50 posts.
‘Clearly, this cannot be viewed as a reasonable use of public funds.’
At Epsom and Ewell Borough Council, strategy and resources vice-chair Eber Kington criticised the government for forcing SPA ‘to waste council tax payers’ money’.
He added: ‘It cannot be right that council tax payers’ money is used on the expensive bureaucratic exercise of rebilling, estimated to be over £1m. A Band D council tax payer will get back £3.24 for the year, but the rebilling will cost about £2.80 per council tax payer.’
SPA chair Peter Williams added: ‘We have argued that the process of capping – where authorities are not told of the limits they are expected to work within until after they have set their budgets and issued bills – makes it impossible for authorities to plan their budgets with any certainty.’
Healey said SPA would be capped because it had set a 2009/10 budget increase of 4.82% and a precept increase of 7.07%. But the police authority argued that its precept increased only by 4.89% on the precept charged in 2008/09 – below the 5% capping threshold.
The government’s 7.07% figure had been produced by comparing its 2009/10 precept with ‘the artificial construct of a notional precept figure’, SPA said.
