Geoff Back from the TaxPayers alliance explains why council inefficiency needs to be improved for tax savings.
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00:00Council tax has apparently become more expensive indeed of course we look at
00:04our bills and we see it's gone up quite quite a lot in recent years. Now the
00:08reason for that are that sort of council services which of course require a lot
00:12of labour and of course the uncosts and indeed the sort of the factors for
00:16many local authorities they depend upon what they get from government which has
00:19dropped quite dramatically. They've tried to sort of make up the
00:23difference as much as they can by putting up council tax because as I say
00:26it's a major sort of source of revenue. Now the argument about sort of are we
00:31sort of getting value for what we pay for and is it too expensive? Local
00:36councils face mounting pressures, rising inflation, increased demand for services
00:41like social care and homelessness support and the ongoing cost-of-living
00:46crisis are significantly impacting their budgets. This has led to difficult
00:51choices such as increasing council tax, raising fees and potentially cutting
00:56valued services. Additionally government funding cuts and increasing energy
01:01costs further strain council finances forcing them to make tough decisions
01:06about to allocate limited resources effectively. Taxes are already going up
01:13across the board in many areas it's going to really really harm local
01:17residents. In terms of what councils should do instead they need to look
01:20internally the brutal reality of local government over the last 15, 20, 25 years
01:25and particularly since pandemic is that productivity has plunged catastrophically.
01:30They are not producing as much work as they used to. That's probably a mixture
01:34of factors it could do with working from home but in particular I think it's as a
01:38result of the increase in the number of staff and a fall in the standards
01:42expected of those staff from town hall bosses so they need to they need to be
01:46demanding much much more from their staff. Top-level salaries in particular
01:51but I think the ultimate simple fact is that council staff are not doing as much
01:55work as they used to and that means that services are not being delivered
01:58properly with resources they already have.