IMMIGRATION 'TO FORCE UP' COUNCIL TAX

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COUNCIL TAX WILL HAVE TO RISE BECAUSE OF THE GOVERNMENTS FAILURE TO GET A GRIP ON IMMIGRATION, TOWN HALL CHIEFS HAVE WARNED.

They insisted there was no way local government could afford the public services that hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Eastern Europe would demand. Lord Bruce-Lockhart, head of the Local Government Association, has written a scathing letter to Home Secretary, placing the blame squarely on the Government.

In a devastating critique of the governments performance on immigration, he warns the crisis has created 'severe problems' that will lead to Council Tax rises, local job losses and cuts in services. Official estimates of the number of immigrants arriving in Britain have badly underestimated the pressure on the communities where they have settled.

The LGA claims the governments inability to calculate the scale of the problem has left local authorities out of pocket. Lord Bruce-Lockhart's anger stems from the massive influx of migrants that has stretched services to breaking point in Slough, Berkshire - a situation he says is replicated nationwide. According to figures provided by the Office for National Statistics, only 300 immigrants are settling in Slough each year. But the local council says there are at least 10,000 migrants alone living there.

Of 9,000 new National Insurance numbers handed out over the past 18 months, only 150 went to British nationals. Since local councils receive central government funding according to the number of residents living in their areas, failure to calculate the number of immigrants can lead to critical financial shortfalls.

This leaves the entire community suffering as schools and hospitals are overstretched. The LGA believes the arrival of immigrants could lead to a 6% rise in Council Tax - which has already soared by more than 70%. In his letter to government, Lord Bruce-Lockhart, the former Tory leader of Kent County Council, stresses that the same problem is affecting local communities nationwide.

Twenty-five councils from around the country were represented at a seminar a week ago at which they expressed concerns at the Government's inability to get its numbers right. He writes: 'There are a number of local authorities for whom the current system of measuring the number of migrants in specific council areas is failing to ensure adequate funding to keep council services to local people maintained. Councils are finding it difficult to provide services to growing populations that are not recognized by government statistics.

'Working migrants have become an invisible population whose children need school places, who need to be housed appropriately and in some cases need social services. Official statistics have failed to reflect this.' In his letter to, Lord Bruce-Lockhart demands to know when the Government will establish a system that can gather accurate information.

'Unless accurate, up-to-date figures on migration are produced, so that the proper funding to councils can be reflected, this could pose severe problems in the future as services get cut, or Council Tax has to rise disproportionately,' he warns. He also tells the Home Secretary existing workers are being forced out of the workplace by eastern European immigrants. He concludes: 'Chief executives, from places like Slough, are happy to welcome EU accession state migrants and recognize their contribution to a thriving local economy in many parts of the country. 'However, there is evidence that migration is displacing existing resident labour.'

Ministers claimed just 13,000 immigrants would come to Britain when its borders opened to migrants from the new states of the European Union. But since 2004, around 700,000 economic migrants have arrived to work here. The letter is a crushing rebuke, who used a weekend interview to call for a mature debate about immigration and indicated that an independent body could draw up limits on the number of immigrants Britain is prepared to accept.

A spokesman for the Department of Communities and Local Government, said: 'Government distributes formula grants to local authorities using the best statistics that are available on a consistent basis.'

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BINS LEVY U-TURN ADDS £100 TO COUNCIL TAX

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THE GOVERNMENTS PROMISE TO ABANDON PAY-AS-YOU-THROW BIN CHARGES COULD ADD £100 OR MORE TOOCOUNCIL TAX, IT HAS EMERGED.

Rubbish tax:
£100 may be added to council tax
 to pay for bin collections

Rubbish tax: £100 may be added to Council Tax to pay for bin collections. Town hall chiefs warned bills may be padded with 'rubbish premiums' if councils are banned from raising bin taxes to cover the growing cost of burying waste in landfill sites.

Powers to let councils charge families for putting out too much rubbish are in the Climate Change Bill, which is going through Parliament. Trials are due to start next year in five areas. Those who do not recycle enough will face bills of at least £50 a year.

But, No10 suggested the rubbish taxes would be axed once the trials end. One source said: 'People made it clear that they don't like a punitive rubbish tax, so it's natural for us to jettison the idea.' But by 2012, The Governments landfill tax escalator, which makes councils pay the Treasury for the waste they bury, will have risen to £60 a ton and EU fines for exceeding landfill targets will have hit £100 a ton. Paul Bettison, of the Local Government Association, said: 'The only thing that councils can do is increase the Council Tax.

'It may be the case that Council Tax is capped. If that happens, there will be difficult decisions about services. 'The Government is going to have to be prepared for old people seeing day centres closed, for swimming pools shut down, and for roads full of holes.' Fears over the Council Tax came as ministers appeared to be falling out with them over dumping pay-as-you-throw taxes.

The Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs yesterday suggested Downing Street's comments had been premature. It said: 'We will evaluate the impact of those pilots before making a final decision.' Critics said the Prime Minister promised twice last year to ditch bin taxes. Tory local government spokesman Eric Pickles said: 'Unless ministers pledge to dump bin tax laws, the public should not trust a word Labour say.

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WOMAN JAILED OVER COUNCIL TAX

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SHE PAID HER TAXES THROUGHOUT HER WORKING LIFE, RECEIVED NO BENEFITS AND HAS NEVER BEEN IN TROUBLE WITH THE LAW.

7 days - sentence for
refusing to pay her horrible
Council Tax bill

But today 73-year-old Sylvia Hardy was jailed for refusing to pay her full Council Tax bill. The former social worker from Exeter is angry that her bill has soared way above the rate of inflation and is holding back £53.71 a year. She appeared before magistrates this morning and was handed a seven day sentence for refusing to pay.

Miss Hardy's defiant stance will heap shame on the government which has failed to tackle the problem of spiralling local government expenditure. 

Pensioners across the country are growing increasingly angry as Council Tax bills rise faster than increases in their pensions. 

One, 71-year-old clergyman Alfred Ridley, has already been sent to a Category A prison for 28 days after refusing to pay £63 of his tax. Miss Hardy visited him last week and is now more determined than ever to make a stand. Yesterday, she confessed that she is 'terrified' of going to prison but said she was determined to go through with her protest as it 'is the only way to get our voices heard'. 'I have thought for a long time that this government is completely out of touch. 'What we are campaigning about is just one issue but there are many more. I hope the politicians take notice of what is happening. Ordinary people like us are so angry.

'We are worried for our future and our ability to cope. 'No one takes any notice of us when we write to our MPs and lobby them, that's why I am taking this drastic action. What else can I do?' Miss Hardy's time in prison will cost taxpayers around £700. She decided to withhold part of her Council Tax after seeing the bill for her £130,000 flat in Exeter rise six times higher than the annual increase in her pension.

Her annual Council Tax bill is £708.26 - which has risen 38% in the past four years, compared with a 6.8% rise in her pension. This year she has paid 1.7% more than last year's bill, in line with inflation, but has held back the rest of the increase. At a previous hearing at Exeter magistrates' court she was given 56 days to pay up or face custody. That time is now up. Miss Hardy joked that she had been to jail once before, to sing The Yeomen of the Guard at Exeter prison with the local operatic society.

She said she was apprehensive about spending a week at Eastwood Park prison in Gloucestershire. 'My doctor says my blood pressure is quite high and has told me to inform the prison authorities. I am determined to do this and I just hope my nerve holds out when I'm stood in the dock. 'The two things I will miss most will be making my own food and a comfortable bed. I have lots of food allergies so I probably won't be able to eat much. And I have a back problem which will probably cause me some pain on the prison bed. 

I will do this for the people of England so they will fight for their human rights.

'Mr Ridley told me when I visited him last week that the beds in prison are very hard so he has to get up very early in the morning.'

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CALLS TO FREE JAILED COUNCIL TAX REBEL

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THE SON OF THE RETIRED VICAR JAILED FOR NOT PAYING HIS COUNCIL TAX DEMANDED HIS FATHER BE RELEASED LAST NIGHT AFTER IT EMERGED THAT HIS ARREARS WILL BE WRITTEN OFF.

Alfred Ridley, 71, who suffers from a heart condition, was sentenced to 28 days in one of Britain's toughest prisons for refusing to pay a £64 annual increase in his Council Tax bill.

His local authority yesterday announced it will waive his debt butonly after he has served his time alongside murders, terrorists and gangsters in the Category A Woodhill Prison. Last night, Joel Ridley, 30, said: 'He should be freed because, in the minds of many, the matter is now closed.

'My father is in a category A prison and he is 71 years old. The council has wiped out his debt and he still finds himself in prison. I am angry about the whole affair.' The National Pensioners Convention described South Northamptonshire Council's decision as 'vindictive'. Spokesman Neil Duncan-Jordan added: 'The council could have expressed a view to magistrates beforehand. Perhaps they are feeling the backlash of public opinion and don't want to be remembered as the council that put pensioners in prison, particularly retired vicars.' A Help the Aged spokesman added: 'The decision by South Northamptonshire Council is welcome but smacks of closing the stable door after the horse has bolted.

'Older people across the country continue to struggle with unreasonable increases in Council Tax despite the services they rely on day-to-day facing swingeing cuts. 'It is little wonder that so many poorer pensioners feel the need to protest.' Mr Ridley - who lives with his wife Una in a rented home in Towcester, Northamptonshire, on an income of £530 a month - became the first Council Tax protester to be jailed after he refused to pay an 8.5% rise in his bill. Instead he paid the equivalent of a 2.5% increase and withheld £64, eventually running up arrears, including court costs, of £691.

Magistrates sentenced him on Wednesday after he continued to withhold payment despite being given a suspended sentence in July. The jail term will cost taxpayers £3,000. Last night Mrs Ridley said she was delighted that the council had wiped out the debt. 'The council rang me and said they were prepared to write off the debt but in return Alfred's punishment will be 28 days in prison.

'We both feel that is fair. I know some people will say that now the debt has been cleared Alfred should be freed, but the price - or the punishment - he has to pay is to serve his time in prison. Mr Ridley has spoken to his family in a brief phone call from the Milton Keynes prison, where Soham killer Ian Huntley attempted suicide in 2003. Son Joel said his father told him the prison was 'grim', that he was sharing a cell with a prisoner 'a little bit older' and would 'just have to see things through'.

Mrs Ridley, 72, added: 'He is level-headed and is bearing up. He does not regret anything. He is keeping calm and steady to pass this thing through. 'But of course I am concerned. There is a gap next to me in bed and there is this guy who I talk to quite a bit and I miss him very much.' Mrs Ridley said she thinks her husband, who has been taking medication for his heart condition in jail, will be treated as a remand prisoner during his time behind bars, and will be able to wear his own clothes, rather than a prison uniform.

An inmate released from Woodhill yesterday said he saw Mr Ridley looking 'worried' while waiting to hand over his personal belongings. 'He was looking depressed, he was looking shaken up. He was sitting down with his head looking at the floor,' said the 20-year-old, who called himself Brown. 'We could not believe a vicar was coming in. My advice to him would be to keep himself to himself.'

The decision to jail Mr Ridley, who did his National Service with the Marines ( A War Hero), provoked fury among MPs and charities for the elderly. It threatens a repeat of widespread Council Tax protests two years ago. South Northamptonshire Council said it took no satisfaction in the outcome of the case but had a duty to collect taxes. 'The reason Mr Ridley is in jail was not because of the money. It was because he failed to comply with a court order. It was the magistrates that sent him to jail,' said a spokesman. 

'comments from the local council' lets blame everybody else?

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COUNCIL TAX RISE TO BOLSTER STAFF PENSIONS

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COUNCIL TAX PAYERS WILL HAVE TO PAY AN EXTRA £20 NEXT YEAR TO MEET THE PENSION DEMANDS OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES.

They are already facing increases of 10% or more in the first rises in Council Tax after the General Election. Figures leaked yesterday showed that the cost of paying the guaranteed and inflation-proofed pensions will rise to £3.75bn this year. This is an increase of nearly £250m on last year.

Most of such costs are picked up by national and local taxpayers.Contributions by local government staff meet only a fraction of the total. Critics say this means that local tax payers, some of them with little or no pension provision, are funding generous schemes based on final salaries for council workers.

David Willetts said: 'Labour has presided over an absolutely preposterous situation in which people with modest incomes and no pensions are paying ever higher Council Tax to provide good pensions for other people. The Government claimed that it was starting to tackle the problem but gave up as soon as it faced union opposition.' The £250m extra costs faced by Council Tax payers will mean their bills will go up by around 1.5%, or roughly £20 for someone paying the average tax for a benchmark band D home. News of the extra bill comes as the Government and councils continue to hire bureaucrats at an extraordinary pace, all with guaranteed pensions. In recent months State organisations have been taking on workers at the rate of 560 a day, five times that at which private companies are recruiting.

Six-figure salaries have become the norm for senior officials, even though their jobs are cushioned from the risk faced by private sector executives. Many of the appointments appear to Council Tax payers as obscure or unnecessary - such as 'strategic' executives and equality officers, 'five-a-day coordinators' to encourage the eating of fruit and vegetables and 'real nappy' officers.

Average contributions to their pension schemes represent around 19% of the value of their monthly salaries. The terms are so generous that local authorities have a £ 30bn gap to make up between the value of the scheme and the cost of paying out the inflation-linked pensions. Attempts by Deputy Prime Minister to curb taxpayer spending on their pensions collapsed earlier this year after strike threats by unions. The government wanted to raise the council retirement age from 50 to 55 and make executives take pensions based on their average career salary rather than their final year's pay.

Council Tax bills, which have gone up by 70% since Labour came to power in 1997, went up by only 4% in this year's rises because the Chancellor handed £1bn extra from the Treasury to councils. But local government leaders have warned that there will be no similar bailout next year and that as a result Council Tax bills are likely to go up by 10% or more. Extra pension payments would mean a further 1.5% on top of that.

Before 1997, six out of ten workers had final- salary pensions which guaranteed that pension payments would always stay at a fixed proportion of their pay when they retired. But the Chancellor £100bn stealth tax on pension funds and falling stock markets have squeezed companies so that two-thirds of final-salary plans have been replaced for new workers by less costly stock market-based schemes. These provide much lower pensions and are less reliable.

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PENSIONERS HIT HARDEST BY COUNCIL TAX

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SOARING COUNCIL TAX BILLS ARE HITTING OLDER PEOPLE HARD WITH THOSE AGED OVER 75 SPENDING TWICE AS MUCH OF THEIR INCOME ON THE TAX AS YOUNGER HOUSEHOLDS.

Bills are hitting older people hard

RESEARCH SHOWED TODAY: The average Council Tax bill in Great Britain has risen by 121% since 1993/1994, significantly outstripping the estimated 82% increase in average income after tax during the same period, according to the Halifax. 

The rise has had a particularly big impact on pensioners, with the tax now accounting for 6% of total spending for people aged over 75, and 5% for those aged between 65 and 74, compared with just 3% for the under 50s. Areas where there are most pensioners have also seen some of the steepest rises in Council Tax charges. 

Bills in the 20 English local authorities with the highest proportion of pensioners have soared by an average of 149% since 1993/1994, compared with a national average of 121%. Chichester in West Sussex has seen the biggest jump among these 20 local authorities, with the average cost of Council Tax soaring by 173% since 1993/1994 to an average £1,244 a year.

Bills in Christchurch in Dorset, where 30% of the population are aged over 65, have also risen steeply, increasing by 171% to £1,193. Overall, 18 of the 20 local authorities in England with the highest proportion of pensioners have seen their Council Tax bills rise faster than average. But Halifax said its calculations of average Council Tax bills did not take into account the means-tested Council Tax benefit that some pensioners received, as there was no published data on this.

There are currently around 2.4m pensioners who receive the benefit, getting an average rebate of £619 a year. Means tested age-related payments - one-off payments worth up to £200 - have also not been included in the calculations. Tim Crawford, group economist at Halifax, said: 'Clearly Council Tax is an important issue for older residents. The tax accounts for a higher proportion of their spending than for younger age groups.

'Pensioners' incomes have not kept pace with the significant growth in the rate of Council Tax. 


'The Government provides help for many pensioner households to pay Council Tax. Unfortunately these are means tested schemes and many pensioners will not benefit from them. Eligible households need to make sure they are claiming these benefits.

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PENSIONERS' COUNCIL TAX CUT DASHED

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HOPES OF A COUNCIL TAX CUT FOR PENSIONERS NEXT YEAR WERE DASHED YESTERDAY.

Lawyers warned that any discount would break human rights laws and the government’s forthcoming rules against age discrimination. Other groups such as single mothers would 'clog' the courts demanding similar privileges. The legal opinion by leading local government lawyer James Goudie QC forced a string of councils to abandon plans for Council Tax reductions for the elderly

This was despite Deputy Prime Minister having approved the scheme. Kent County Council, which introduced the idea, dropped the plan after being told it would 'bring endless legal problems and court challenges'. Hampshire, Surrey, West Sussex, Hertfordshire and Norfolk also scrapped the proposal.

The scheme would have meant Council Tax bills for pensioners would have gone up in line with inflation, meaning they would have paid - on current predictions - average increases of around £25 a year instead of £100. Other Council Tax payers would have been asked to pay an extra £12 on their bills to fund the pensioners' discount.

Ministers now face the threat of a widespread tax rebellion and civil disobedience if the local tax goes up by the expected £100 next April. Kent Tory leader Sir Sandy Bruce-Lockhart said last night: 'In view of the legal advice we will reluctantly not be pursuing our ideas for a pensioner rebate.

'We will, however, be putting all our energy into keeping the Council Tax down.'

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