‘Council system is a nonsense’

11:53am Friday 23rd March 2007

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THERE'S only ten days before the new council tax bills take force and I expect most of you will be consumed with the same rage that boils up inside of me every waking hour.

How dare they charge us an above-inflation rise every year but offer less for it each time. How dare they whine on about lack of government funding but refuse to radically change their own out-dated hugely expensive systems.

Last week, the Bucks Free Press revealed some of the salaries paid to local government officials in our district and county councils.

Several senior staff were earning more than £100,000 per year, while Bucks County Council's chief executive gets up to £160,000.

They won't give us precise figures, even though we pay their wages through these disgusting taxes.

On salaries such as these, top council officials will have no problem meeting their tax bills. The same cannot be said of most of the rest of the population.

I don't actually begrudge the top couple of bods a large wage. If we want Bucks to attract the best chief executives, we have to be prepared to pay for them.

The problem is there are far too many of them because there are too many councils.

Councillors try to justify their existence by warbling on about accountable local government.

But what's local about Aylesbury, the home of our County Hall?

Central London is far more accessible for many people in the south of the county.

And what's accountable about three confusing separate councils in the same area?

We need just one one-stop council based on our doorstep which is genuinely understood by, and is accountable to, the man in the street.

Too often, I've seen confused householders sent from pillar to post around the different councils.

It's a nonsense. And it would be amusing, if it wasn't so grotesquely expensive.

The most depressing thing about council tax is that it takes away all incentive to save and to better oneself.

I have a largish mortgage, which I dream of one day paying off.

I look forward to the day when my honest toil reduces my monthly home bills to zero and means I don't have to keep counting the pennies.

But by the time my mortgage is paid off, it will almost certainly be replaced in size by my council tax bill.

A bill I have no control over, unless I sell my house and move to a cardboard box in Frogmoor.

And by that time, I'll be a pensioner with little means of paying the vast charge.

I might as well give up now, go on the social, get repossessed and spend my dole money on booze.

Alternatively, I could apply for a job in local government.