Since I now live alone, I’m getting 25% off my Annual Council Tax Bill of £2573.
As I understand it, Council Tax funds Fire/Police/Education/Social Services.
When I look at what I get for the money, I haven’t had any fires (yet) nor have I had the Police do anything on my behalf, added to which I no longer go to school, and I have (so far) not asked for any social services!
So, someone is spending a lot of money, somewhere?
Do you feel that you are getting good value for your money?
Bearing in mind that it comes out of your already taxed (to the hilt) income!
This government has already cut them, plus many other things. For example, over 50% of English courts have closed.
In 2019 Boris Johnson claimed he was going to recruit an extra 20,000 police officers. Saying the met alone would recruit an extra 5,000. However, the met said they expected to lose 5000 officers due to “natural wastage.” So that 5000 was only going to maintain numbers.
Official government figures show that in 2010 when the Tories came to power there were 143, 734 police officers, whilst in 2019, there were only 123, 171. So 20,000 EXTRA officers in 2019, would return policing levels to the level that the tories inherited in 2010. So not extra officers, but a return to pre tory days.
edited to add. Overall police employment numbers in 2010 when the tories came to power were.
245,000. In 2019 that number had fallen by 40,000 to 202,000. Plus over those 9 years the UK population had gone up by 3.5 million. So the number of police officers / employees per head of population had fallen by more than the numbers above suggest.
No street lighting
No road cleaning
don’t need schools
no police
no traffic wardens
No drains to clean
pay extra for garden rubbish collection
No grass verges to cut
Just outside the town on a walk, a pavement still has leaves piled against a retaining low wall, drains have not been cleaned out, do we get value, I think not.
Apart from getting my grey and green bins emptied (have to pay for the garden waste bin), bugger all. Roads full of potholes, pavements and footpaths uneven making them unsafe to walk on. No street cleaning, no police patrols (our local bobby was moved to Dudley Hill at Bradford and not replaced). He used to walk around the whole village keeping his eye out. Everyone knew who he was, and he knew all the wrong-uns and kept them all in check. Lots of noisy disturbances now.
Our council is Kirklees, and I metaphorically spit on them. Overpaid councillors and consultants with the almost mandatory diversity manager, paid to sit on their arses all day doing bugger all, while at the same time living the life of Riley, claiming expenses and wasting our CT on pet projects.
I am dreading next year’s council tax charge. At the moment, mine is £2,898.33 but l get a ‘single person’ discount off that.
With rising fuel costs, probably water too, it’s going to get hard!
One consolation is, l still get my four green bins emptied in that price. If they start charging separately for each bin, I don’t know what l will do with all the garden stuff.
I forget exactly how much council rates I pay but it is about $1400 (£700/£750). it pays for the local roads, footpaths, garbage collection, libraries, street lighting, parks, sports grounds , parking and the like.
It definitely doesn’t pay for police, schools, hospitals etc they are all state government responsibilities, nor do the councils have responsibilities for sewerage or storm water.
Personally I think the rates are too high but at least they are capped at the rate of inflation.
I was paying about the same as you in the village house, 3 years later in the small house in town I am paying £980 a year with the 25% single person discount.
