By Vivienne Russell | 28 January 2013
Councils that are planning to increase council tax without holding a local referendum have been slammed as ‘democracy dodgers’ by Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles.
Pickles said local authorities should ‘man up’ and ‘be straight with people’. Those planning on circumventing a local poll, by setting their tax increase just below the 2% threshold, could lose out on Whitehall funds next year, he warned.‘Councils should stop treating residents with contempt,’ Pickles wrote in an article for the Daily Telegraph.
‘Democracy dodgers who try to creep in under the radar, putting up their stealth tax by 1.99% in a bid to avoid our 2% referendum threshold, need a reality check. We will take into consideration anybody cheating their taxpayers. Anybody using loopholes will lose out next year.’
He added that the ‘days of the kneejerk tax and spend hike’ were over. He praised councils that were either freezing or cutting their council tax, including West Sussex, Wolverhampton and Windsor & Maidenhead.
Pickles announced in October that £450m was available to help councils fund a third successive council tax freeze in 2013/14.
But the Local Government Association said the government’s offer was a short-term one that did nothing to ameliorate the long-term pressures they were facing.
An LGA spokesman said: ‘Government is cutting council funding by 33% and the sheer scale of the spending reductions is taking a toll on local services. This is despite the fact that councils have delivered significant efficiency savings, scaled back discretionary services and reduced the annual pay bill by more than £1.4bn.’
The spokesman added that, in order to continue maintaining services and promoting local economic growth, councils needed the discretion to consider the long-term interests of their residents.
