The Great Council Tax Scam

This is how it works:
Firstly, create a steeply progressive tax system based loosely on the notional value of property.

Secondly, ensure that this tax takes absolutely no account of an individual’s ability to pay.

Thirdly, ensure that, for a devolved region of the UK, an extensive revaluation exercise is undertaken. (It has to be a devolved area in order to deflect the blame for rises in the tax.)

Fourthly, progressively, increase the demands you make on local authorities within the devolved region and at the same time tinker with the formula by which local authorities receive their share of central government revenue to favour those areas which generally support your own political gang. This means that other areas which generally don’t support you are penalised.

Fifthly, demand evermore “efficiency savings” from local authorities. (Note: efficiency savings is code for a variety of actions like “close your small schools”, “close your community hospitals”, and so on.)

Sixthly, and here is the really clever trick and it only really works well just before local authority elections, set a really tight budget, preferably at a rate less than the current rate of inflation, so that the local authorities are forced to cut services, raise council tax by a huge amount and seek greater “efficiency savings”, simply in order to meet a wage increase that has already been set at a level greater than the budget settlement.

Finally, spin the line that, yes, this is a tight settlement but it comes after a period of very generous settlements and if only local authorities had achieved the efficiency savings that they had promised, then they wouldn’t have any problem at all.

There you are, you have achieved a massive saving in central government revenue spending in order to finance your ‘war on terrorism’ and at the same time laid the blame for the tax rises fairly and squarely on local authorities, ensuring that those authorities controlled by your political opponents are the hardest hit.

Well done, Rhodri, you really do think we’re stupid, don’t you.