10 March 2000
Analysis carried out by CIPFA shows that an average £49 will be added to bills in England next year and £59 in Wales. Metropolitan borough residents will face the highest average band D bill of £918.
Although these are only interim figures – the final ones are published at the end of the month – the rise is in line with expectations.
Steve Freer, CIPFA chief executive, said such an increase was to be expected given the budgetary constraints on councils.
'Councils face a difficult balancing act. On the one hand, they are keen to limit tax demands on local people and, on the other, they face pressures to increase investment in and improve the quality of local services.
'Given the tensions between those two aims, an average tax increase of around 6% is not altogether surprising,' he said.
But the rises are not high enough to trigger capping. The largest increase is in Wales, where bills will rise by 9.8% although the Welsh Assembly had an agreement with the Treasury that increases would not exceed 10.7%.
The average bill across all eight bands is £688. This means that, for the first time, council tax bills are higher than those under the poll tax, which stood at £659.
PFmar2000
