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Posted by John Merry on 20th December 2011 at 04:48 PM

The so called halving of the council tax. Is it a shameful confidence trick

John Merry

You may have received a leaflet claiming that a council tax cut of 50% would be achieved if you voted for a mayor. This leaflet was published by the Alliance formed by Mr Berg a property owner from Prestwich. Is it too good to be true? I am afraid it is which is why there has been such furore about their refusal to give details.

The current projections for council tax yield in 2013/14 is £98 million, cutting that by half is £49 million worth of cuts plus the £15 million demanded by government leads us to a total of £64 million of cuts required.

Mr Moulding, a member of this alliance has posted elsewhere how he thought it could be done. "A mayor would instruct the officers to devise a budget that entails no cuts in essential front line services." Whilst he was at it he would no doubt instruct them to turn water into wine and make it stop raining! Officers would be failing in their duty if they did not inform the mayor that such levels of cuts could not be made without damaging front line services

The reality is that £64 million cannot be cut from the council's budget without damaging front line services. They have helpfully given us a clue as to how it might be achieved when they talk about the "traffordisation" of services; in other words to provide them at the same level as Trafford.

Let us take our support for the elderly as an example. Trafford operates a much stricter criteria for the elderly. If we were to adopt their criteria as argued by the Mayoral Alliance it would mean approximately 6,000 elderly people would lose their support. All this in the interests of bringing the council tax down, chiefly for the benefit of the wealthiest of the city.

The only figure mentioned by them is the £34 million allegedly spent on regeneration last year. Not true; as far as I can tell they have taken the "sustainable regeneration directorate" budget and assumed it is spent entirely on regeneration. This budget however includes housing, looking after the homeless, highways maintenance, planning and lighting renewal to name but a few.

In fact, there is very little in the way of actual revenue contribution to "regeneration". There is a £10 million contribution to capital repayment but even Mr Moulding would not be able to escape legal responsibilities. Of course if it was possible the Tories or LibDems would have argued for it. The fact that they are as dismissive of the Mayoral Alliance proposals as I am, indicates that they are completely fictitious, which brings me onto why they were put forward in the first place. It could be possible that they don't understand local government finance but Mr Berg and Mr Moulding are both ex councillors. If they do understand what they are doing, then why has such a fantasy been created? Is it complete naivety or a shameful confidence trick to cover up the weakness of their arguments?

Comment by John Merry ( member ) ^{21st December 2011}
No challenge of the figures just a rather sad repeating of the same mantra . The policy has been shown to be a sham . Thank you and goodnight.

Comment by yestomayor Salford ( member ) ^{21st December 2011}
I am afraid it is not Cllr Merry. In the event of a Mayoral Alliance Mayor for Salford council tax will be cut by half from 2013. This will mean more money in the pockets of local people for them to spend it on their families rather than you spending it (ie £410,000) for the Council on a public house which you failed to maintain so the council ended up demolishing it and in the process part of Salfords heritage.

Comment by John Merry ( member ) ^{21st December 2011}
No refutation of my figures then . Policy duly sunk

Comment by yestomayor Salford ( member ) ^{20th December 2011}
You can believe it Steve because in the event we have a Mayoral Alliance Mayor it will be achieved. No you do not Cllr merry you are scaremongering because you are trying to save your cushy number at the town hall.

Comment by Salford and Proud ( member ) ^{20th December 2011}
Hang on a minute, did I read that correctly, Michael Moulding is "not going to endlessly repeat myself..." Well blow me down with an electocal voting slip. You have done nothing but endlessly repeat yourself on this site Ad Nauseam. You are one strange chap in more ways than one, do us a favour and give it a rest, stone me what a life.

Comment by John Merry ( member ) ^{20th December 2011}
No one believes you Mr Moulding You say it's fully costed but the above takes it apart line by line . Your cut according the info I have is at least23% of our entire budget . By your own admission you have no idea how it can be achieved instead you will "ask the officers". Which of my figures do you dispute ? If your flagship policy is sunk perhaps we can get on to debate the principles

Comment by SteveM ( member ) ^{20th December 2011}
If only I could believe it...

Comment by yestomayor Salford ( member ) ^{20th December 2011}
The Council Tax yield is only a small part of the Council's overall budget as Cllr merry fails to disclose. I am not going to endlessly repeat myself as to how we intend to cut Council Tax from 2013 in the event that there is a Yes vote in the mayoral referendum and we are successful in any mayoral elections, other than that our proposals have been fully costed and there will be no cuts in essential frontline services which includes care for our elderly.

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