Council tax to rise 0.24 per cent

COUNCIL tax in Knowle and Dorridge will rise 0.24 per cent - £3.15 for an average band D property – in the 12 months from April 1, councillors are set to agree.

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Council tax: what you'll pay

COUNCIL tax bills for the 12 months from April 1 have been agreed by council, police and fire bosses. Click the headline to see what you'll pay (Knowle and Dorridge).

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Council tax to increase

COUNCIL tax bills are to rise by about £8 after increases as high as 10 per cent were put forward by public bodies.

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Council tax discounts to be axed

COUNCIL tax discounts for empty homes are to be scrapped while long-term empty properties will have to pay more from April 1, it has been announced.

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Warning over council tax "scam"

RESIDENTS are being warned about a doorstep council tax scam.

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Don't let voters veto council tax, says council

COUNCIL bosses have opposed a Government bid to let residents veto ‘excessive’ council tax rises – because homeowners would reject major hikes.

Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council has opposed plans by the coalition Government.

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Taxpayers' group slams parish councils

CHANGES to parish councils in the Hockley Heath area are 'ripping off' taxpayers, a pressure group says. Read their blog post here.

Council tax: how much you'll pay

THE average council tax bill in Solihull will rise by £28.18, it was confirmed last night.

Members of Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council backed a 2.25 per cent rise for its share of the final bill, an extra £25.78 for a band D property.

When police and fire increases are added the average band D rises 2.18 per cent to £1,321. this is an extra £28.18 compared to this year.

Click here to see how much you will pay. Click here to find your council tax band.

Residents who live in an area with a parish council will pay more.

Leader Councillor Ken Meeson said: “This is less than half the assumed increase published in the original three year plan and is indicative of the efforts made by members and officers to deliver substantial savings across the authority.”

He said this was “in recognition of the continuing financial pressures faced by both the council and the borough’s taxpayers, many of whom have been affected by the economic recession”.

The roads budget will get the biggest cut, The Silhillian reports today.

Click here for the full papers considered by councillors last night.

More to come.

Planned council tax increase cut

COUNCIL chiefs have cut their proposed council tax increase as parties battle to show commitment to cuts in public spending.

Ruling Conservatives on Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council have reduced their proposed increase from 2.93 per cent to 2.4 per cent for next year, the 12 months from April 1.

This would give the council £1,178.11, an extra £27.61 compared to this year. Police and fire chiefs get the rest of the final bill, about an extra £120.

The council’s part of this year’s council tax was increased by 4.5 per cent in February.

It has now announced a raft of cuts and savings to keep the council tax low next year.

The tax is seen to be a key general election issue as the UK slowly emerges from a difficult recession.

In a press release, Liberal Democrat Solihull MP Lorely Burt says the rise this year and last year, five per cent, are “well above inflation and some of the largest increases in the country”.

She said the Lib Dems would freeze council tax by lobbying the Government to give the council more cash.

She said: “Council tax is hugely unfair as it hits the poorest hardest.”

Liberal Democrat council group leader Councillor Ian Hedley said: “Residents have endured years of above-inflation increases to their council tax bills under the Conservatives”

“It is high time the Government gave their fair share to the people of Solihull.”

The lower increase figure was announced at the last meeting of the council’s cabinet.

Members also agreed to scrap a 0.2 per cent discount for paying council tax early to save cash.

The official minutes record pressures on looked after children and social services for adults.

Members “felt that the Government should consider covering these increasing costs especially where these cost resulted from statutory requirements being placed on the council”.

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Council: project ads on us for cash

PROJECTING advertisements onto council buildings and sponsoring car parks are among savings being considered by bosses in a bid to close a financial black hole.

Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council is also considering sponsoring its buildings, trees and mobile libraries to plug a £13.7m gap. Such deals could net it a total £125,000.

The council – which has among the lowest council tax rates in England – hopes this will see its share of next year’s council tax bill increase by 2.9 per cent.

Possible savings affecting residents include:

• Removing the early council tax payment discount. This would have been 0.2 per cent next year. This would remove the “disadvantage to council tax payers who cannot afford early payment”.
• Charging people for advice on preparing planning applications.
• Increasing burial and cremation charges.
• Replacing illuminated road bollards with reflective strips.
• Raising the cost of a wedding licence for civil ceremonies.
• Increasing private citizenship ceremonies by a third to £75.
• A new ‘twilight’ service for weddings later in the day, costing £450.
• Charging for forestry advice.
• Introducing a standard charge for most pest control services.
• Charging for an additional green bin.

Possible savings affecting council and schools staff:

• Stopping workers having more than one computer. This currently applies to 470 council staff.
• Getting a better deal for 75 officers and councillors who have their broadband internet connection paid for by SMBC.
• Charging schools for criminal records bureau checks. They pay half at present.
• Removing a discount for paying school meals early.
• Increased use of second class post.
• Urging staff to reduce their hours.
• Stopping newspaper deliveries for staff.

The council said savings already found including using in-house legal service for employment advice rather than external solicitors. These cost up to £330 an hour and £65,000 annually compared to £64 in-house.

But a report says it is ‘regrettable’ the council is having to put aside £2,200 for investigations for the standards committee, which looks at complaints against councillors.

A total of 31 cases were referred to the committee this year and ‘several’ are being investigated.

Click here for details of the proposed savings (item 9).

The authority – which gets the lowest government grant per head of all metropolitan authorities – has already moved to cut music and social services schemes.

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Council tax "hard to keep down"

SOLIHULL Metropolitan Borough Council will struggle to keep council tax rises below 3 per cent next year, its leader has warned.

Councillor Ken Meeson, right, spoke after it was announced that the council will get a 1.5 per cent increase in Government cash help next year.

It will get £54.8m for 2010/11, up from £53.9m this year. This is mostly raised from business rates.

Cllr Meeson told The Birmingham Post that more demand on adult and children social services, especially after the Baby P case, was putting a strain on budgets.

This means the council may have no alternative but to cut services and raise the council tax to pay for it.

This year the council increased its share of the final bill by 4.5 per cent, £49.44, to £1,147.94.

Most of the cash the council spends comes from the council tax bill, £102.6m this year.

The rest of the bill goes to West Midlands Police (£97.98) and West Midlands Fire Service (£46.90). Some areas pay a further charge to parish councils. More details here.

At the time this year’s bill was announced, the council said it got the lowest Government grant of any metropolitan council in England.

The final bill will be agreed in March.

MP vows to cut council tax

MERIDEN MP Caroline Spelman said the Conservatives will fight to get council tax “back down to a reasonable level”.

She said Labour had got councils to charge residents for services on top of their yearly council tax bill.

In a blog she wrote: “What Labour Ministers don’t get is that most people think, quite reasonably, that their hefty council tax bills should cover the cost of services.

“That’s the reason councils are reluctant to press ahead with charging, and when they do it is because funding and direction from the centre leaves them with little option.”

The MP said the average family in England spends £1,190 over and above their council tax for services such as council-run car parks.

Mrs Spelman said the extra charges are “the latest mechanism Labour ministers are deploying to rinse more cash from the pockets of hard-pressed taxpayers”.

This year, the average band D property pays £1,292.82 to Tory-controlled Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council and for police and fire services.

This was a 4.35 per cent increase on the previous year, an extra £53.91.

Labour is planning a re-evaluation which “will drive bills up further and it is going to make councils charge for more and more services” she claimed.

The council tax is based on the value of homes but these are still set at much lower 1991 levels. Revaluation was postponed in 2005 until after the next election.

Mrs Spelman wrote: “It’s clear people have simply had enough of paying more and getting less under Labour.

“The priority for a Conservative government is to get council tax back down to a reasonable level and safeguard the services people rightly expect from the town halls.”