Council Tax

Surrey County Council is urging residents to sign an online petition protesting at how Government funding is short-changing them.

The county council has set up a petition on the website of the Prime Minister's Office demanding fairer funding levels for Surrey.

Leader Nick Skellett launched the petition after the Government's latest settlement effectively left the county council in a worse financial position for the fourth financial year in a year in a row since the Government changed the funding system in 2006/07.

The county council's Government grant for 2009/10 increased by 1.75 per cent at a time when inflation is 3.1 per cent and most other English counties received four per cent. The pressures have been increased by the extra demands placed on the county council's services by the recession.

The county council is calling for an independent commission to take the politics out of distributing funding to local authorities across the country so they can offer the same level of service to their residents as each other.

Executive Member for Resources Michael Gosling said: "Surrey's residents continue to be short-changed by the Government when it comes to funding for the services we provide.

"Clearly this cannot continue, especially at a time when the recession is biting and making life tough for families and businesses in Surrey, and we ask residents to join us in making it clear to the Government that they want and expect a fair deal.

"We are calling for an independent commission to be set up to review how money is given to local government. We demand a fair and equitable system of allocating funding to councils so that we all have money we require for the services we need to provide.

"The Government's repeated failure to treat Surrey's residents fairly by under-funding their county council only stores up problems for the future because we continually have to find ways to bridge this funding gap.

"An independent commission can ensure that finance is provided to councils on the basis of needs. Only then would we be in a position to reduce the number of sometimes difficult and uncomfortable decisions we are being forced to make."

The Government gives Surrey residents £205 funding per person for services, which is way below the national average of £595. Manchester gets £856 for every person it serves. Whitehall’s limited funding means residents’ council tax has to pay for 81 per cent of services.

People in Surrey make a net contribution of £5.5 billion annually to the Government – and that means every man, woman and child in the county contributes £5,100 to the public purse.

The county council’s petition states: “We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to urgently review funding levels for local government in Surrey".

The SCC element of the 2009/10 Council Tax bill (which is normally over 75% of the total bill) was finalised at the Council meeting on 10th February, where a lower than expected 2.9% increase was approved. 

b) Runnymede Borough Council

The RBC element of the 2009/10 Council Tax bill (normally c.10% of the total) was finalised at the council meeting on 12th February & resulted in a 4.8% increase over 2008/9.

c) Surrey Police Authority

The Police element of the 2009/10 Council Tax bill (normally c.15% of the total) was finalised at the Authority budget meeting on 9th February, when a 4.9% increase over 2008/9 was approved. Last year's increase of 9.7% has since been made part of a 3 year capping review of the Surrey police budget by central government.

The Government announced in August that they were capping the Police precept & as a result RBC have had to re-issue Council Tax bils  for a reduction of just £3.24 per household on average!

The net effect of the above means an overall increase for 2009/10 of 3.4%, which means that Runnymede residents continue to pay the lowest Council Tax in Surrey.