Star comment: Make rise effective to avoid fury
Shropshire Council has been cutting, trimming, tightening its belt, and hiving things off.
For council tax payers, we can now see their reward – they are paying more, for a council which is doing less.
The rise in Shropshire Council’s council tax rate is shaping up to be six per cent, almost double the rate of inflation. This comes on top of a big rise last time round.
If the council were a chocolate bar, it would be one of those bars which the manufacturers have made smaller, and yet put up the price, a process dubbed “shrinkflation.” Over at Telford & Wrekin Council, Council Tax payers are facing a rise of 3.2 per cent.
Nobody can claim that there is a like-for-like comparison between the two councils, which have their own issues and problems to contend with.
After all, when Telford & Wrekin went independent from the old county council in the 1990s the big argument advanced in favour of the breakaway was that the area had special needs, with the implication that the Shrewsbury-based authority did not really understand them.
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There have been advocates of late of a merger between Shropshire Council and Telford & Wrekin Council to bring, so it is claimed, efficiencies and savings of scale.
Enthusiasm for such a move has not exactly been marked in Telford area, and this stark difference in the amounts levied for council tax between the two authorities will make it even more difficult to convince Telford residents that there is anything in it for them.
So what is are residents in the rest of Shropshire going to get from a 5.99 per cent council tax rise, the maximum allowed?
Council leader Peter Nutting says that there is huge pressure on adult social care and children’s social services.
“We need the money so we can provide a decent social services system for some of the most vulnerable people in Shropshire,” he says.
Fair enough. By that criterion he and the council will be judged. It will pay for adult social care and supporting the vulnerable which, while many Council Tax payers will not benefit themselves, is a noble aim many of them will support.
Amid its financial pressures, Shropshire Council has raised eyebrows by toying with the idea of buying shopping centres.
By slapping such a big tax rise on Salopians, it is charged with the responsibility of living up to its promises in those areas it says the money will achieve improvements.
People will want to see the difference. And if they see none, a lot of council tax payers will feel badly let down.
