Church Stretton points the way forward for funding local services

From the Shropshire Star today:

Church Stretton Town Council has agreed to set up a “working group” to look at the services in the area put at risk by Shropshire Council cuts. 

It will launch consultation with people living in the town over whether to raise the council tax precept to help fund such services in the future. 

The move has come in response to Shropshire Council’s proposed budget for 2017, which suggests stopping all funding of services such as libraries and leisure centres.

This report reveals the scale of the cuts the government is inflicting on local government.

For decades the Liberal Democrats campaigned for local services, but then we adopted George Osborne's economic opinions during the Coalition years. When we start campaigning for local services again, as we must, we risk at best puzzling the voters.

But there may be something interesting at work here too.

When I was a councillor my impression was that people did not worry about the level of taxes so much as whether they got value for their money.

And maybe such judgements mean more when money is raised and spent locally.

So could Church Stretton, which you can see in the photo above, be pointing the way forward for local government?

It would go against the current thrust of policy in local government, which is all about the abolition and amalgamation of authorities and the appointment of regional mayors, but I would like to think so.

Mind you, such increases in hyperlocal taxation can be controversial, as the case of Desborough shows.

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Just because they retweet you, it doesn't mean they have understood you

As it stands this evening, the Labour leadership is against bombing Syria but in favour of bombing Britain

— Jonathan Calder (@lordbonkers) November 26, 2015

It's nice to be widely retweeted, but does it mean that all those people have understood what you have said?

A new paper highlighted by the British Psychological Society's Research Digest blog suggests it does not:

The researchers based at Peking University and Cornell University say that the very option to share or repost social media items is distracting, and what's more, the decision to repost is itself a further distraction and actually makes it less likely that readers will have properly understood the very items that they chose to share.

You can read about the two studies on the Research Digest, but I have observed a small example of this phenomenon myself today.

Last night I blogged about Desborough Town Council and its decision to increase its precept by more than 400 per cent.

If you read that post you will see I express some sympathy for this decision - "If ever a town gave the visitor the impression that it needs some money spent on it, that town is Desborough" - yet every person who has retweeted my tweets about this post appears to be a Labour supporter.

Did they even click through to the post before retweeting?

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Conservative council puts up tax bill by over 400 per cent

The memo about Britain having overspent on its credit card has clearly not reached Desborough in Northamptonshire.

There the Conservative-run town council has voted to increase its portion of the council tax bill by more than 400 per cent.

Defending the decision, the council's chairman Cllr Mike Tebbutt told the Northamptonshire Telegraph:

"I've had a few complaints passed on to me by the council clerk and they have all been responded to explaining our intentions. 

"The rise is absolutely justified. We are going to provide many of the things that people have wanted to see happen in Desborough. 

"From information passed to the electorate we are committed to a number of things, including improving the town centre, sports facilities and provision of a new skate park."

I have a certain sympathy for this decision. If ever a town gave the visitor the impression that it needs some money spent on it, that town is Desborough.

And this is how local democracy is supposed to work. If Tory councillors have misjudged the mood in the town then the people of Desborough are free to vote them out at the next election.

But Council Tax rates are now so controlled from the centre that it is only town councils that can take radical action like this.

Not everyone agrees with the council's decision.

Step forward Mick Scrimshaw of Kettering Labour Party:

No other council would even be allowed to do this but as Town councils do not have to abide by the same rules as other councils and they were able to push this through without a referendum and without proper consultation with their electorate. 

In my opinion it shows a complete disregard for democracy and also shows a spectacular lack of competence and imagination. I have n doubt they want to spend this extra money on worthwhile things (although I don’t know) but simply to raise council taxes in this way without looking at other ways of raising finance is simplistic and crass.

So welcome to the topsy-turvy world of Desborough Town Council where the Conservatives hugely increase taxes to pay for better services and Labour demands continued austerity.

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