Council tax freeze u-turn to cost local authority £15,000
THE move by the leader of Inverclyde Council to ‘reluctantly’ accept a compromise over a disputed council tax freeze will cost the local authority more than £15,000 in administration fees, it has been revealed.
Elected members yesterday agreed to press ahead with plans to issue rebates to taxpayers who have already been billed for the new financial year after a council tax rise of 8.2 per cent was previously set at the budget meeting in February.
Following discussions between council leader Stephen McCabe, pictured, and deputy first minister, Shona Robison, additional funding will be received from the Scottish Government to offset the price hike.
However, the spend for issuing fresh letters advising of the amended charges, which was initially estimated at £10,000, has now been put at between £15,000 and £17,000.
Chief financial officer, Alan Puckrin, confirmed the printing and postage costs for the notices, which will be sent to around 30,000 households, at a meeting of the policy and resources committee yesterday.
Councillors were told that since Inverclyde’s share of the £62.7 million cash pot is yet to be decided, a further bill – at the higher rate – will be taken for April from those who pay the levy by direct debit before any credit can be applied to their accounts.
A report prepared for the meeting said the cashback would be administered in a similar manner as the one-off £150 cost of living payment in 2022/23.
Mr McCabe told the meeting that, despite his administration ‘reluctantly’ accepting Holyrood’s deal not to increase council tax, he ‘still fundamentally believes’ that the nationwide freeze ‘is the wrong national priority’.
The opposition SNP group requested that any further decisions on the controversial U-turn be referred to full council, but party members refuted suggestions of ‘showmanship’ and claims that they were trying to delay the process of applying rebates. Councillor Robert Moran said Labour colleague Mr McCabe ‘deserves a lot of credit’ for reaching a compromise, while Conservative David Wilson, who abstained from the previous vote on raising the tax, claimed the convener ‘has come through this with his integrity in tact’.
The previous heated debate sparked complaints and allegations of misogyny and Inverclyde North representative Liz Robertson said some of her comments have been met with ‘very significant aggression’ from rivals. She said: “We do need to work together but for that to happen there needs to be space for us to speak, not to be shouted at or harangued.
“We need to be allowed to have different opinions without excessive aggression being put at us when we do.”
SNP counterpart Kirsty Law added: “I have been totally disheartened by this whole process which has cost the people of Inverclyde thousands of pounds and increased the toxicity of this working environment.
“Members are more interested in scoring political points than the needs of residents of Inverclyde.
“It really needs to stop for the sake of everybody in here but more importantly for the people of Inverclyde who expect better from us.”
Mr McCabe said members ‘should actually be thanking’ his administration, together with Argyll and Bute and Orkney councils, for initially rejecting the national freeze and securing extra money from the Scottish Government.