Council Tax Freeze

[Parklife]

I'd happily pay more tax across the board, not just council tax.

[Auld_Reekie]

I'd happily pay more tax across the board, not just council tax.

I generally agree. But I want to have faith that the money raised is being invested wisely. So while I'm in favour of increased general taxation, Im not happy throwing it up the air and hope it lands in the right place. Primarily that means avoiding going through HMRC, so council tax might ironically be the tax Id be most comfortable with.

Really though, the political climate is far too polarised and erratic just now to be considering messing with taxes Local taxes. Quicker we get independence and we reset things the better.

[TartanJon]

Lets no kid ourselves on that front line services are being cut while councils hierarchy fill theirs and their friends and their families friends pockets with council tax money. From arms lengths companies to their big fancy feck off houses the council tax payer has been getting the hole ripped out of them for years.

Eddie McAvoy Jnr left his job at the Hoover and walked into a gaffers job at the South Lanarkshire Council whithin weeks.If you opened the door of Rutherglen Town Hall and threw a dart in you would be guaranteed to hit a McAvoy or a relation of a McAvoy .Which makes the flying of the Union Jack from the town hall flagpole even more silly considering they are all staunch Irish Republicans.

Lets up my council tax for this shit boys!!!

PS

Why should I pay extra for my bin getting emptied once a fortnight when I practically do all the feckin work for the lazy kents ? I have to take nails out of wood and wrap them in bundles before leaving them 7.5 inches from the kerb before they will take them away.

[antidote]

@Lamia.

Trust me I have a big clue as to what I'm saying.

Why have LA not shared their education and health departments with other LAs?

Our education and health needs are the same all over Scotland. a big proportion, if not most, of the education budget is spent on council administration costs.

Scotland has a higher proportion of public sector workers than almost every other part of the UK.

Most of them wouldn't last 5 minutes in their job in the private sector.

Year on year I watch as around 5, yes 5, workers water the hanging baskets in my town and even in January I watched as 2 workers use leaf blowers to blow off a light dusting of snow from public gardens.

Go to your local 1 stop shop and you couldn't move these people if you tried and you get nothing, but cheek if you even dare to ask why you've waited so long.

My LA have moved their library staff onto an arms length company payroll thus this is counted as council pay offs.

These are just a few examples of wasting our hard earned money and I haven't even started on the middle management and above.

I ask again. Why should my money subsidise these people in a job?

[Scunnered]

@Scunnered. North Ayrshire is too far away.

Ach, that's a shame. You'd have been a real asset.

[EvilScotsman]

@Lamia.

Trust me I have a big clue as to what I'm saying.

Why have LA not shared their education and health departments with other LAs?

Our education and health needs are the same all over Scotland. a big proportion, if not most, of the education budget is spent on council administration costs.

Scotland has a higher proportion of public sector workers than almost every other part of the UK.

Most of them wouldn't last 5 minutes in their job in the private sector.

Year on year I watch as around 5, yes 5, workers water the hanging baskets in my town and even in January I watched as 2 workers use leaf blowers to blow off a light dusting of snow from public gardens.

Go to your local 1 stop shop and you couldn't move these people if you tried and you get nothing, but cheek if you even dare to ask why you've waited so long.

My LA have moved their library staff onto an arms length company payroll thus this is counted as council pay offs.

These are just a few examples of wasting our hard earned money and I haven't even started on the middle management and above.

I ask again. Why should my money subsidise these people in a job?

Er, aye.

This argument is slightly undermined by the consistent failure of every privatised industry to perform more efficiently, or to make any kind of savings while ensuring continuity of service.

[TartanJon]

Set up as an “arms length” company by Labour-controlled Glasgow City Council in 2006, City Building (Glasgow) LLP (formerly the council’s Building Services Department) has enjoyed a large amount of salacious press coverage in recent months.

It began with the revelation that since 2006 City Building had awarded £10 millions worth of contracts to City Refrigeration Holdings Ltd whose founder and boss, Willie Haughey, has donated over £1 million to Labour since 2003 — the biggest donor to Labour in Scotland.

In the same period City Refrigeration won just one other public contract — a slightly more modest £15,000 contract with South Lanarkshire Council.

City Building had also awarded contracts of unknown values to AS Scaffolding, whose boss, Andrew Smillie, has donated over £1,000 to Glasgow Central Labour Party. The company donated nearly £3,500 to the campaign by Andy Kerr MSP to become Labour Group leader at Holyrood, and paid around £1,500 for Kerr’s trip to the 2008 UEFA Cup Final in Manchester.

City Building — which has three Labour councillors on its Board, and the husband of another Labour councillor as its Managing Director — has donated £4,000 to the Labour Party by “buying”tables at Labour Party fund-raising dinners, and had also paid £50,000 for hiring exhibition space at Labour Party conferences.

Then the spotlight turned on City Building’s appointment of Lesley Quinn as Business Development Manager, on a salary of around £50,000 a year. Quinn used to be the Scottish Labour Party’s General Secretary. The post had not been advertised prior to her appointment. She is not known to have any previous experience in the field of business development.

More recently, attention has switched to City Building’s hospitality bill: £50,000 over the past two years, spent mainly to the benefit of senior managers, their spouses, and Labour councillors.

What has been given a lot less attention in the media, however, are the attacks on trade union organisation in the City Building workforce.

In May 2009 City Building signed a union recognition agreement which confirmed five days a week facility time for the Unite and UCATT convenors. But in February 2010, without giving the notice required by the agreement, City Building announced that facility time would be cut to two days a week.

When the Unite convenor refused to accept this, City Building began paying him for just two days a week, on the grounds that he had failed to return to his former job as a plumber for three days, and was therefore “really” only working two days a week.

In April an Employment Tribunal ruled on an outstanding case involving Unite, City Building and Glasgow City Council, dating back to the transfer of staff from the council workforce to City Building. In its judgement the Tribunal stated that it did not believe the evidence put forward by the Unite witnesses, including its City Building convenor.

City Building provided a link on its website to the judgement and issued a letter to its staff claiming that the Tribunal’s judgement showed that City Building could not have any confidence in the integrity of the Unite convenor. The letter appealed to Unite members to vote the sitting convenor out of office.

In response to the refusal of Unite members to allow City Building to dictate who should, or should not, be their convenor, City Building then banned the Unite convenor from its premises, placed him on “gardening leave”, and cut his pay from two days a week to nothing.

Two very basic questions remain unanswered: Why has the Labour-controlled City Council, which still maintains ultimate responsibility for City Building (as an “arms length” company) done nothing to reverse this attack on trade union rights by the Board of City Building?

And why has Unite not only failed to organise a ballot on industrial action in defence of trade unionism in City Building, but has also done nothing to expel Gerry Leonard — the Unite member who, as chair of the City Building Board, presided over this attack on fellow members of his union?

[Wine bibber]

We have to remember that if you had continued with the increases in council tax in similar terms to the annual increases prior to the freeze it would represent a significant increase for working families.The SNP saved the day for many in this sense. The people on here who can afford to pay fair enough,they have to remember there are hundreds of thousands of people who are struggling.

Secondly ,just how much difference has the freeze made to the quality of public services up until now.Very little which proved the Scottish govt theory that the increases were unjustified and the money was going into increasing benefits and pensions for council staff.I agree with antidote and tartanjon on this one.Corruption in our council system is rife.Ever wondered how so many people used to vote for Labour.?Independence was another great chance lost to equalize our society.Why should you be forced to pay for your neighbours council pension when you cant afford to save for a pension yourself.Just ludicrous

Thirdly ,the actual cost of council tax varied greatly in the UK.I remember being surprised at how much less a colleague who has a similar sized property to mine was paying in the SE of England.This was probably about 15 years ago so maybe it has equalised since.

Finally if we are getting to the stage where a small increase is needed , take it from the billions we have to spend on Trident,Aircraft carriers,The House of Lords,Royalty,Westminster corruption and Rich Tax Dodgers etc etc etc.....

[antidote]

@EvilScotsman.

Private companies make savings by paying off workers.

If you're not good at your job in the private sector you're paid off.

Do I get subsidised by the tax payer working in the private sector? No, so why should I keep a bloated system afloat with higher taxes because if the CT goes up the first thing councils will do is look after themselves and their gilt edged pension.

[Flure]

The people on here who can afford to pay fair enough

People are, of course, at liberty to contribute more than the minimum called for. At their own discretion.

[TartanJon]

http://glasgowunihumanrights.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/labour-councillor-of-shame-gilbert.html?_sm_au_=iVVS2HZf03DJzsr5

[TartanJon]

http://www.corruptglasgow2014.com/

Some folk want to pay extra for this shit. Knock yourselves out.

FTR

If extra meant more jobs for ordinary punters and a better service then I would happily pay more

[antidote]

@wine wibbler.

If my memory serves me right, the last Labour government had a rule that if a household had a combined income of more than £14k they had to pay the full CT and get no help in help with the payments.

Doing it this way was pushing people into poverty.

I am old enough to remember the poll tax and how unfair that was, but I also remember our Labour controlled council sending out threatening letters of eviction if you fell behind in payments.

For information my household was £4 over the qualifying limit for help in poll tax benefit help.

[Wine bibber]

People are, of course, at liberty to contribute more than the minimum called for. At their own discretion.

[Glasgowmancity]

I'd happily pay more tax across the board, not just council tax.

I've got to be honest, this is something I would disagree with. I'd probably be happy to up Council Tax for things like a return to weekly refuse collections, but certainly wouldn't support tax rises across the board.

[Mee]

Council tax funding is a minefield due to the way the boundaries were defined. It's a nonsense that the suburbs around Glasgow all work and play in Glasgow yet don't pay for the area instead leaving it to mainly deprived areas.

I don't know about anyone else I pay a fortune in taxes and yet I come to work the roads are broken, litter everywhere, schools are In crisis, NHS in crisis, not enough police etc.

Where is the money going

[Wine bibber]

@wine wibbler.

If my memory serves me right, the last Labour government had a rule that if a household had a combined income of more than £14k they had to pay the full CT and get no help in help with the payments.

Doing it this way was pushing people into poverty.

I am old enough to remember the poll tax and how unfair that was, but I also remember our Labour controlled council sending out threatening letters of eviction if you fell behind in payments.

For information my household was £4 over the qualifying limit for help in poll tax benefit help.

Yes, and if you were made redundant with no income there is no reduction in your council tax if you are in a household with a working family member.Happened to a friend of mine in Edinburgh .Built up arrears of several thousand pounds and the council engaged a ruthless private company of lawyers,(who added their fee to her misery).She was never able to pay the debt.Anyone who thinks councils are fair and reasonable and left leaning should stop walking about with their ears shut and their eyes closed.

Ironically it was the one area of the poll tax which was fairer.In that it was based on individuals not house holds and if you had no income whatever your partner earned you did not have to pay.

[Flure]

Council tax funding is a minefield due to the way the boundaries were defined. It's a nonsense that the suburbs around Glasgow all work and play in Glasgow yet don't pay for the area instead leaving it to mainly deprived areas.

I don't know about anyone else I pay a fortune in taxes and yet I come to work the roads are broken, litter everywhere, schools are In crisis, NHS in crisis, not enough police etc.

Where is the money going

Wow! Where do you live?

[Wine bibber]

Council tax funding is a minefield due to the way the boundaries were defined. It's a nonsense that the suburbs around Glasgow all work and play in Glasgow yet don't pay for the area instead leaving it to mainly deprived areas.

I don't know about anyone else I pay a fortune in taxes and yet I come to work the roads are broken, litter everywhere, schools are In crisis, NHS in crisis, not enough police etc.

Where is the money going

The roads are broken because only 34 % of road tax goes back into repairing roads.The rest stays with Westminster .No doubt some of it is dolled back to the winging jocks.As far as litter is concerned extra bins mean that council workers have to empty them.We had to fight for 10 years to get 2 extra bins for the community.

[TartanJon]

Council tax funding is a minefield due to the way the boundaries were defined. It's a nonsense that the suburbs around Glasgow all work and play in Glasgow yet don't pay for the area instead leaving it to mainly deprived areas.

I don't know about anyone else I pay a fortune in taxes and yet I come to work the roads are broken, litter everywhere, schools are In crisis, NHS in crisis, not enough police etc.

Where is the money going

You do understand that when people work & play in Glasgow they contribute to the economy of the city. Are you wanting a human toll tax imposed on the residents from the suburbs of Glasgow to ease the burden on the poor and needy of the once great city ?

[Parklife]

I've got to be honest, this is something I would disagree with. I'd probably be happy to up Council Tax for things like a return to weekly refuse collections, but certainly wouldn't support tax rises across the board.

We get our landfill waste emptied every 3 weeks, most of the time my bin is only about 25% full. I appreciate that i live alone and families will produce more but the amount of waste some folk produce is a disgrace. I've no idea how folk can fill huge bins with landfill waste on a weekly basis.

The council tax freeze is probably the SNP policy i disagree with the most. It impacts negatively on our local services, which every single one of us relies upon. I think initially it may have served a purpose in increasing efficiencies within local authorities but we're now at a stage where there's not much left to squeeze. Ordinary workers are having to endure year on year pay cuts (wage raises below inflation) and the people who rely on the services the most, the poorest, are being hit the hardest.

[Scunnered]

We get our landfill waste emptied every 3 weeks, most of the time my bin is only about 25% full. I appreciate that i live alone and families will produce more but the amount of waste some folk produce is a disgrace. I've no idea how folk can fill huge bins with landfill waste on a weekly basis.

The council tax freeze is probably the SNP policy i disagree with the most. It impacts negatively on our local services, which every single one of us relies upon. I think initially it may have served a purpose in increasing efficiencies within local authorities but we're now at a stage where there's not much left to squeeze. Ordinary workers are having to endure year on year pay cuts (wage raises below inflation) and the people who rely on the services the most, the poorest, are being hit the hardest.

You're a man after my own heart Parkie

[Glasgowmancity]

We get our landfill waste emptied every 3 weeks, most of the time my bin is only about 25% full. I appreciate that i live alone and families will produce more but the amount of waste some folk produce is a disgrace. I've no idea how folk can fill huge bins with landfill waste on a weekly basis.

I would say as a family of 4, we half fill our small purple bin (glass), overfill our green bin (general waste) by 50% & overfill our blue bin (cardboard/plastic recycling) by 50% each fortnight. If you add in Christmas/Birthdays etc then that can easily increase by another 50%.

I just find it an annoyance to have to go to the dump each week when I'm already paying for the refuse to be collected.

[Flure]

We get our landfill waste emptied every 3 weeks, most of the time my bin is only about 25% full. I appreciate that i live alone and families will produce more but the amount of waste some folk produce is a disgrace. I've no idea how folk can fill huge bins with landfill waste on a weekly basis.

The council tax freeze is probably the SNP policy i disagree with the most. It impacts negatively on our local services, which every single one of us relies upon. I think initially it may have served a purpose in increasing efficiencies within local authorities but we're now at a stage where there's not much left to squeeze. Ordinary workers are having to endure year on year pay cuts (wage raises below inflation) and the people who rely on the services the most, the poorest, are being hit the hardest.

That suggests that you weren't/aren't against the principle of the Council tax freeze, but it's just a negotiation about how long it should last.

[EvilScotsman]

@EvilScotsman.

Private companies make savings by paying off workers.

If you're not good at your job in the private sector you're paid off.

Do I get subsidised by the tax payer working in the private sector? No, so why should I keep a bloated system afloat with higher taxes because if the CT goes up the first thing councils will do is look after themselves and their gilt edged pension.

Oh aye, pensions.

Do you not think the solution to public sector workers having 'gilt-edged' pensions is for private companies to offer similar? Or do the higher wages available in the private sector not compensate for the lower pensions?

I can't understand the mindset that thinks 'why do they get that?' rather than 'why don't I get that?'.