Friday 17 February 2012

Subordinate Central Spin on Council Tax doesn't hold up.

Good Old Subordinate Central  manage to witst the news once again on the announcemen of the council tax increase this year and  that Swansea, Caerphilly and Monmouthshire councils are the only authorities in Wales so far who plan to freeze council tax next year, with average increases set for a record low of 2.1% Subordinate Central  come up with the headline
"Welsh Lib Dem Councils keep Council Tax down"
Dispite the fact that they only lead a minority Council in one  those setting a Zero rate  Swansea have no councillors in Caerphilly and only 5 on Monmouth Councils.

For the record the rate reads as
Ceredigion Ind/LD/Lab, Blaenau Gwent Ind, Denbighshireind Ind/PC/Con/Lab, Flintshire Ind/LD/Con, Gwynedd Plaid ,Merthyr Tydfil Ind, Powys Ind Rhondda Cynon Taf Lab Torfaen Lab (minority)and Wrexham Ind/LD/Lab/Con councils want to raise their taxes by between 2.2% and 3.5%.

Carmarthenshire Ind / Labouncil is planning a 1.97% increase,Pembrokeshire Ind council has set its proposed rate at 1.7%, while Cardiff LD / Plaid council plans to impose a 1.44% increase.

Bridgend, Neath Port Talbot, and Vale of Glamorgan councils are yet to indicate their plans.

So the Libdem claims are a bit far fetched  despite Peter Blacks claims that...
“Careful financial planning and prudent spending by councils, especially Welsh Liberal Democrat-led councils, means that more money will be staying in Welsh people’s pockets during these difficult times.
“Welsh Liberal Democrat-led councils are keeping council tax increases low, and have consistently kept them low over the past four years, to help people out in difficult financial times.”
The only council to raise the council tax by 5% the caped rate is Anglesey  which as we all know is not facing elections this year.

Which despite all the talk from Plaid in Caerphilly or the Conservatives in Monmouth and of course the LibDems in Swansea of being prudent  Probably has more to do with the low rates this year.

With less than  Three Months to the May elections it would take a brave council to set the higher rate of Council Tax to 5% as Anglesey have.

But it is ridiculous for Peter Black to make such a claim since the  Libdems  are only in power in coalitions on Welsh Councils and are the majority group on these in only two Cardiff and Swansea and are not even  the largest group on the latter.

We are used to  the LibDems through Subordinate Central twisting the facts but this is misleading even by their standards.

1 comment:

Owen said...

I've been number crunching on this very issue Glyn, looking at Council Tax for a blog in the next few weeks (I'm waiting for the last four LA's to set theirs before I can get to work proper).

From what I've found so far, Lib Dem run council generally do keep their Band D increases down. However they are only in power, in coalition, or in influence in LA's with higher average weekly wages, like Cardiff and presumably bigger business rate income and larger populations with more households.

In short they can afford to keep it down.

But you are right that it's disingenuous to say the Lib Dems are "keeping Council Tax down" on their own accord.