Labour – Independent Council Tax Myth Buster

With Flintshire residents furious about the Labour – Independent coalition’s 9.5% rise in Flintshire council tax, Labour and Independent councillors are desperately posting to Facebook anything they think will save their skin – no matter how true. Here are some of their worst fibs:

“Opposition groups supported a 9% council tax rise”

No they didn’t.

There was NO VOTE on a 9% council tax increase. There was one vote, on a 9.5% hike, which was supported by the Labour – Independent coalition and opposed by Flintshire People’s Voice.

As well as the 9.5% council tax hike vote, there were a number of other votes on taking some money off council tax. Flintshire People’s Voice backed every single one. The Labour – Independent coalition rejected every single one.

Anyone telling you some councillors voted for 9% instead of 9.5% is either confused or lying to you.

“Flintshire council tax went up by 8.9%, the police added an extra 0.6%”

That isn’t how percentages work. If your councillor can’t understand percentages, are they fit to make decisions on half a billion pounds of your money?

Council tax is made up of three parts – the amount set by Flintshire County Council, the amount set by North Wales Police, and the amount set by your community council. The table below shows the percentage changes set by each for a band D property:

	Last year’s amount	This year’s amount	Percentage change
Flintshire County Council	£1658.25	£1815.78	9.5%
North Wales Police	£349.65	£372.15	6.4%
Community Councils (average across all)	£54.86	£58.84	7.3%
Total	£2062.76	£2246.77	8.9%

Maths teachers in schools across Flintshire will be furious at how wrong it is to use the change in one thing as a percentage of another. So why are Labour and the Independents doing it? Because it makes them look slightly less bad, and never mind about the truth.

“72% of all council funding is spent on children and the vulnerable”

This is the combined figure for education and social services, but under the Labour – Independent coalition, not all of that money reaches frontline services.

Some of the things those budgets have been spent on include pizza and ice cream for senior councillors, a £500,000 fan for a school kitchen when cheaper options were available, and forcing schools to use the council’s preferred suppliers for procurement, making them pay well over the odds.

Trying to claim that this counts as spending on “children and the vulnerable” is pushing it.

“The council would have gone bankrupt if we didn’t set a 9.5% council tax hike”

This claim is wrong, and wrong again.

Firstly, councils can’t actually go bankrupt.

Secondly, there were other options to cut waste and save money – but the Labour – Independent coalition rejected all of them.

Flintshire People’s Voice councillors have highlighted unnecessary spending time and time again – whether it’s wasting more than £20,000 of public money on 17 new welcome to Flintshire signs, the 25% increase in salaries paid to Labour – Independent cabinet members, the huge handouts the council is trying to give to tax dodging foreign millionaires, or the tens of thousands of pounds they pay to external consultants to make the tough decisions for them instead of doing their jobs.

When they tell you there was no other option, what they mean is there was no other option that they could think of – something very different.

“It’s the Welsh Government’s / UK Government’s fault”

We’ll give them some credit – this one is partly true.

But Labour is in power in the UK Government, in power in the Welsh Government, and in power in Flintshire – together with their independent lackeys – so who’s really to blame?