Council tax hikes go through in a mist of confusion

11:17am Friday 30th November 2007

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THERE is one good thing about council tax. Yes, you read that correctly. I said there is actually one good thing about council tax.

And that is that it exposes our shambolic system of local government as being democratically unaccountable.

I've always insisted our councils are undemocratic on the grounds the public simply doesn't understand the complicated three-tiered system.

Generally, I believe I am derided as a rabble-rousing troublemaker who doesn't know what he's talking about.

But council tax proves my point in a truly spectacular way.

Every year since goodness knows when, County Hall parades the same crisis in front of the bewildered public. The tax must rise massively because of lack of central Government funding, or services must be cut. Or, in some case, both scenarios happen.

Once, they hiked up the tax by around 15 per cent. Then, a couple of years later, they decided to close loads of branch libraries and started threatening to switch off street lights.

This year, they are proposing to whack up the tax by 4.5 per cent - which is above inflation - and are also effectively asking us, the public, what services we wish to cut.

This, of course, is all the fault of the horrible Government, says the Tory council. Yes, it's Gordon who takes the blame. But the Labour Government denies this and says it has given loadsamoney to Bucks.

This happens every year, and every year we the public don't know who to blame. We don't know who's accountable as the rises and cuts go through in a mist of confusion. No individual gets blamed and no one resigns because it's always someone else's fault.

That's not democracy. The whole system needs to be ripped up and we need to start over again with one that actually works.