Trafford Council Tax Rise in Context

Nobody will have welcomed the recently announced rise of some 5% in Trafford's Council Tax (4.94% for Trafford services taking it to 5.14% after Police and Fire precepts). Above inflation rises are always hard to explain away and justify to those who have no choice but to pay up. This task is made even more difficult during an economic recession bordering on depression the likes of which most people have not experienced in their lifetime.

Conservative controlled councils always strive to keep the increases as low as possible in the believe that hard earned money is best kept by the individual to spend rather than the state.

However, it is important that the local context in Trafford is understood. Nearly 70% of what Trafford spends annually is financed directly from central government in Whitehall. Trafford has argued for decades that the formula used to calculate how much Trafford receives from the government is unfair because by comparison with other local authorities it is one of the lowest. Across Greater Manchester the average government support per head of population is £716. For Trafford this figure is £471 and in neighbouring Manchester it is about £1,050.

If we look at support for schools we see a similar trend. The government schools funding per pupil across Greater Manchester is £4,223. For Trafford this figure is £3,992 and again in Manchester this figure is about £4,750.

Add to this unfair funding position the growth in demand for services in Trafford then it becomes easier to see how little room there is for manoeuvre. As the aged population of Trafford grows and demand for adult social care increases then the Council has to provide this service. In fact Trafford as part of this years council tax increase has invested an additional £4.5m (8.8%) in adult social care services and an additional £2.9m (9.6%) into children's social care.

Conservative controlled Trafford should never become complacent about the effect of above inflation rate council tax rises, on those who have no choice about paying them but the context in which these decisions are taken needs to be taken into account.