The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Fife council tax freeze is ‘the right thing to do’
Fife residents had the good news of a council tax freeze tempered by those in local authority-let accommodation facing an increase in rent.
The council decided against a rise in tax bills for the coming year in a move to ease financial pressures brought by the pandemic.
There will be no hike in the eight-tier council tax rate, which starts at £853.87 and rises to the highest at £3,137.95, when bills are issued to residents next month.
However, Fife Council has agreed to raise rents by 1.5% for 2021-22, although it was a smaller increase than the projected 2.2% for tenants, which also takes into account the impact of Covid-19 on households.
The decisions were taken at a meeting of the council to set its rates ahead of the budget meeting on March 11.
In the Scottish Government’s draft budget in January, Finance Secretary Kate Forbes announced £90 million earmarked for councils, giving them the equivalent of a 3% rise in support funding if they agreed to freeze council tax rates for the coming year.
By agreeing to do so, Fife will receive around £5.8m of extra funding.
Fife administration coleader Labour councillor David Ross said the last 12 months had been “unprecedented and difficult” for everyone and that freezing the council tax was “the right thing to do”.
He added: “Failure to freeze the council tax would result in Fife not getting that extra funding from the Scottish Government and that would be a significant loss to the level of funding for the council.”
Co-leader SNP councillor David Alexander said: “If ever there was a year to freeze the council tax, then this was the year to do it, given the impact of Covid-19.”
Concerns that the Scottish Government may not “baseline” the money as part of future financial settlements were also raised, with Mr Ross adding that Fife would have the difficult choice of either doubling potential future council tax rises next year or be forced to make cuts to services.
An amendment for the council to write to the Scottish Government to seek assurances over the stability of future funding was agreed.
Council tenants will be expected to pay around £60 per year more in rents after the council confirmed it will increase rents by 1.5% for the coming year.
Normally the increase would have been calculated by adding 1% to the rate of inflation, giving a 2.2% increase, but it was reduced to reflect the difficulties faced over the last 12 months.
Labour councillor, Judy Hamilton, convener of the communities and housing services committee, said there will be £2m made available to support tenants on Universal Credit and working households who have had their employment disrupted by furlough.
She also highlighted that the rent increase would provide £80.6m of investment into council housing.
“That investment will include £31m for property refurbishments, £6.3m regeneration of estates and £2m for energy efficiency measures,” said Mrs Hamilton.
She added that £1.6m from the monies raised would go to improving Traveller accommodation in Fife, while a further £2.6m would be used to improve homeless hostel facilities across the region.
Furthermore, £30m will be committed to phase three of the council’s affordable housing plans to build 1,500 new homes in the next five years.