General Chat

...dropped through the door today. Ours is EXACTLY the same as last year, even to the penny, apart from the Parish Council precept, which has gone up from the princely sum of £4.18 to £13.97......! an increase of 234.2%, apparently......!

Absolutely scandalous, I say, what on earth do they propose to do with my extra £9.79? Put and extra lump of sugar in their tea each time they have a meeting?

Ours went up 2.6% in 2010, 2.9% in 2009, and 1.9% the year before This years increase overall was 0.6%, despite the pc increase.....!

All the council's recieved instructions from the co-elition not to increase council tax this year.

Ours more than doubled during time Labour was in. Haven't had this years yet - but thought they were supposed to reduce them.
IGP - I can honestly say that during my years as a Parish Councillor I never had a cuppa at any meeting even when they went on to near midnight!!

our council tax has increased by £18 a year so not that bad

Haven't had mine yet. I would have no objection to them increasing in line with inflation if this would prevent the Council from making loads of workers redundant while somehow managing to keep all the top level on.

I am not a Council worker either but I do know that vital services are going to suffer and no doubt we will be the ones who end up in a worse mess especially if services go out to tender.

Do you ever wonder how Council tax can be kept so low?
Well, as a council tenant, my rent has gone up by 12% in the last 2years! 5% last year and 7% this year.
Okay,the rent on social housing is lower than that in the private sector -but surely that's the reason for social housing!
...and no, I'm not happy supporting those who can afford to buy their own houses!!
I also work in the public sector and my (lower than private sector -especially in the 'lower' ranks) wages have been frozen for the past 2 years, and are set to be frozen for another 2.....(unlike those of the highly paid management)
If my rent rises by the same amount next year, I would be just as 'well off ' on the minimum wage!!!
..and 'they' wonder why some people can't be bothered/don't want to work/!!!

we havent had ours yet ...or our green bin £30.00 god i hate this time of year

Uhm....

To be honest, as one who has scrimped and saved for nearly 40 years to pay the mortgage, I'm not happy supporting subsided social housing rents either.

Incidentally, what do Parish Councillors actually do with the £13.97 I'll be paying them this year?

Private sector pay hasn't exactly been rising either...OH and the rest of the company took a 10-20% pay cut about 2 years ago and have not long gone back to 'normal'. It was either that or shed some jobs. I'm also a bit fed up with the public sector outcry over pensions - do they think the pension provision is so great for the private sector? I've worked in both, and my 10 years worth of public sector pension is far better than anything I've contributed to since.

Our council tax has gone up - by the huge sum of £1.36 a year :-))

IPG, I wish I could have scrimped & saved to buy my own house - but I scrimped and worked to keep my children fed and my head above water!

I live in social housing - ergo I must be a 'scrounger'.?

I was pigeonholed as a single parent - therefore I must be some sort of 'slapper' - and thick with it?!
Shame I don't read the Daily Mail or I may believe it.

I admit I didn't work when my children were young- no crime is it?
We (children, husband & I ) lived in the middle of nowhere, one bus a week - I don't drive.
However, I have worked constantly since my youngest was 14months old -apart from 2 weeks after I was made redundant - office moved to the middle of nowhere-and I still don't drive.

My ex was ousted after an affair. Perhaps,according to some I should have accepted this 'mistake' on his part. Well, after he had married the 'new' love of his life, he continued his merry afffair- ridden way-so who's the 'slapper'?

Work then necessitated a job that was around the children-and of course was low paid.

Thick? Possibly. The only other time I haven't''worked' in my life was when I selfishly went to University aged 40. True I only got a 2:2 -but I also had 2 teenagers to contend with! (still alone)
I wanted to do a PGCE after,but they stopped it that year.
2 years after I applied to do a Graduate teaching course but, unless you were male or of an 'ethnic' minority (it actually said that in the letter)there was no point in applying.

Pension? -I can't afford to even pay in to it!
Having to pay bills etc with a single income isn't the easiest thing in the world. Believe it or not, there are some very low paid workers in local government. They 're-arranged' the grades of the non-managerial grades 3 years ago- and of course we all received a pay cut.


Probably no more than I deserve to be supporting those who 'support' us thick, indolent worthless council tenants.

Oh-by the way, I and many others in Social housing pay tax, insurance and Council tax, so I'd be really interested to know how house owners are supporting me any more than I and others in Social housing are supporting the unemployed/single parents (whom I presume IPG has a gripe against )

Sheila, how true.

Since 2000 and 2007 when I retired, I had one single payrise, which amounted to 1.25% and over the same period we saw a reduction in staff numbers of around 15-20% coupled with a corresponding increase in workload for those remaining. Al supervisors and upwards attended a series of courses to look at ways of eliminating waste and unproductive activities.

I remember on one of these courses, one of the lecturers, who himself was due to retire, and had worked with both the private and public sectors said that when comparing similar work, the private sector a) paid less and b) was around 5-10% more efficient than the public sector.

The problem with public sector pensions is that they are paid out of current income - unlike private pensions which have an investment fund behind them - there is no pot of money. As a result they cost twice as much to fund, in addition to being far more generous and any shortfall has to be covered by the taxpayer.