Piece by piece the government‘s financial policies continue to unravel
At this time of the year all local councils start to work out what money they are going to have to spend in the coming year, and what services they are going to be able to provide.
Yet the government‘s fixation on keeping down council tax because it is almost certainly planning an election next year is causing huge problems, for this is a major way in which council‘s can raise money after being short-changed by government every year.
This week we saw two major pieces of financial information being broadcast.
The first was from the police authorities. Remember the Labour claim that there are more police on the street? Now the police are saying they will have to cut back on numbers because they do not have enough money!
Secondly the Local Government Association has revealed a £1 billion black hole in government finances.
We have different parts of government saying different things. The Treasury says council tax should increase by an average of 6·7%, whilst John Prescott says it should be no more than 5%.
The Treasury have done the sums, whilst others have worked out the politics. The sad thing is this affects people‘s lives on a daily basis.
For the people of Medway this can all be easily summarised. We do not have enough money coming from government, and we are not going to be allowed to raise council tax enough to cover the gap.