2% or less on future council tax

Staffordshire would see lower council tax in future. That’s the three year guarantee Conservatives made in the County Chamber today if we are successful in winning Staffordshire from Labour’s 30 year grip on power in this June’s County elections.

All costed and entirely ‘do-able’ given tighter control on the public purse strings and our pledge has also been formally assessed as ’sound’ by the independent Finance Officials who are tasked with overseeing the County budget on behalf of the public. We’ve tried to keep our promise as simple as possible… if we are running the County Council after June the tax people pay to the County locally will rise by no more than 2% or, if inflation’s lower, that figure.

So it means if inflation is 0% then council tax will not increase. But if inflation jumps again, say to 4%, people are protected and the council tax would still only rise by 2%. It’s managing the County like we each manage our household budgets. Most of us live within our means and we buy new things only if we can afford it or can genuinely afford to finance it. Simple, and a fundamental departure from County Labour’s spend today and worry tomorrow style of running things.

We tried to start it from this April because the Labour Cabinet decided a few of weeks ago on a 3.5% rise. We’ve been pushing a Budget which would have meant only 2% and in addition a discount for all Staffordshire homes with people over 85 years old living in them.

We lost the vote on those immediate changes but at least, at the 11th hour, it did force a partial Labour climb down and they dropped their rise from 3.5% to 2.45% for this year saying they were thinking of doing it all along. That despite, in Cabinet only a couple of weeks ago, formally deciding on the 3.5% rise. You can read those papers on that here.

During a speech I made in the debate I bated the Labour Leader, John Taylor, to be honest on whether he’d have reduced council tax if Conservatives hadn’t proposed our costed cheaper alternative.

I didn’t get an answer… just a wry smile. Glad he thinks playing with Staffordshire people’s finances is amusing, I don’t!

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