Ways to keep council tax down

LETTER: Telford & Wrekin Council has got to find about £3 million of economies in order to keep council tax rises to about 3.5 per cent. This equates to about six per cent of council tax.

Let me give some idea how this could be achieved.

In 2007/2008 £1.125 million was uncollected in council tax by T&W – about 2.2 per cent of council tax. Transforming Telford, a private company with 14 board members, gets £.922 million – about two per cent on the council tax. If we do not have council executives capable of doing this job are we getting value for money?

The T&W publicity budget last year was £1.58 million – another three per cent on council tax. A good council generates its own publicity.

Contributions to councillors' pensions is 14.4 per cent of councillors' allowances. So if for example there are 30 councillors in the scheme on the basic of £7,000 the council pays £1,000 per annum into their pension fund while they pay £420. Stop this and save £30,000.

If these things alone were addressed there could be a saving of about 7.2 per cent, so we need have no rise.

D L Barnett

Arleston