Contact: Jon Pittam, ext 7400

1 Summary

1.1 This report summarises statistics on the letters, emails and telephone calls received as a result of the County Council's 2005/06 council tax and budget. It includes enquiries to Information Centres and the County Treasurer's Department, but not those made directly to County Councillors.

2 Background

2.1 In December 2004 the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced in the pre-budget statement that an extra £1bn (including £358m in formula grant) would be allocated to councils in England and Wales to keep council tax rises to low single figures. Furthermore the Chancellor's 2005 budget revealed that for 2005/06 the Government would make a £200 contribution towards the council tax bills for properties where one occupier is aged over 65.

2.2 The Government threatened to cap the 2005/06 budgets of councils setting excessive increases and stated that `the average council tax increase in England will be less than 5%'. On 23 March 2005 the Government announced that it was proposing to cap the budgets of 9 councils. None of these are authorities in Hampshire.

2.3 The County Council set a council tax resulting in a rise of 3.5% for 2005/06. This is the lowest increase in the County Council's council tax ever and the lowest increase in local taxation for 35 years. The actual tax rises in 2005/06 are:

Hampshire County Council Hampshire Police Authority Hampshire Fire Authority	3.5% 5.0% 1.6%
Hampshire Districts	1.7% to 6.5%
Overall Hampshire area	3.3% to 3.9%
Hampshire average	3.6%
England Counties average England overall average (pre-capping)	3.9% 4.1%

2.4 The County Council provides a budget leaflet to accompany every council tax bill issued by the district councils to the 525,000 council tax payers in Hampshire. In addition the Spring 2005 edition of Hampshire Now includes an article on the 2005/06 budget. The leaflet and article direct taxpayers to the budget pages of Hantsweb for further information and provide details of how to contact the County Council if they have questions on the budget.

2.5 Telephone calls on the budget are received initially by information centres and referred to the County Treasurer's Department if the query is complex. All emails and letters are responded to directly by the County Treasurers Department in line with corporate standards.

3 Enquiries in 2005

3.1 Since the level of Council tax was set at 3.5%, 41 taxpayers have contacted information centres and the Treasurer's department with queries or complaints. These are analysed in the table below:

3.2 Many of the enquiries received by the Information Centres concerned the person's own council tax bill, such as payment arrangements or their entitlement to benefits and discounts. These callers have been referred to the appropriate district council and are not recorded above.

3.3 The Government estimate that nationally 4 out of 10 pensioners are not claiming the council tax benefit to which they are entitled. One of the conclusions of the County Council's Claim the Benefit campaign in 2004 was that use of the term `benefit' in publicity material may have been off-putting to some potential claimants. Therefore this was not used in the budget leaflet or Hampshire Now article. The 2005/06 leaflet included a statement encouraging those on low incomes to contact the County Council to find out whether they were entitled to financial help. 140 taxpayers contacted the County Council in response to this. It is not clear how many of these subsequently applied for council tax benefit through their district council.

4 Concerns raised and questions asked

4.1 The enquiries dealt with by the County Treasurer's Department represent the core of those that wished to raise points of substance. The number of enquiries dealt with by the Department in 2005 at 21 was significantly lower than the previous year's total of 64 (when the County Council's council tax rise was 4.7%), and remains a small proportion of the total number of council taxpayers of 525,000.

4.2 The number of complaints about the council tax increase received by the County Council via its information centres or the Treasurer's Department also fell in 2005/06 to 12. The trends are shown in the following table:

4.3 Of the 41 taxpayers contacting the Council the majority of enquirers were either seeking further clarification or had negative comments to make. A sample of the comments made by council taxpayers are attached as an appendix to this report The issues can be grouped into the following categories.

Complaint about council tax increase	12
General budget enquiry	7
Query on Chancellor's additional £200	6
Query related to capital/borrowing costs	4
Queries meant for district councils	4
Query related to presentation of bill/leaflet	3
Queries related to staffing numbers	2
Council tax bill received late	2
Clarification of services provided by which council	1
	41

5 Council tax increase

5.1 The majority of queries related to the size of the council tax rise or related to spending on specific services and how the overall budget is funded. The low council tax rise in 2005/06 had the effect of reducing the number of complaints about the increase. However as a proportion of the total number of taxpayers contacting the County Council the number raising queries as opposed to complaints fell in 2005/06. This could be explained by efforts made in 2005/06 to reduce the complexity of the messages in the leaflet and article and provide answers to the most frequently asked questions on the finance pages of Hantsweb.

5.2 There is some correlation between the number of complaints about the council tax over the last eight years and the size of the increase in the tax, as the following graph shows.

2003

5.3

6 Recommendation

6.1 That the report be noted.

Section 100D Local Government Act 1972 background papers

The following documents disclose facts or matters on which this report, or an important part of it, is based and has been relied upon to a material extent in the preparation of this report.

N.B. the list excludes:

1. Published works.

2. Documents which disclose exempt or confidential information as defined in the Act.

Council Taxpayer's queries 2005/06 (CT/CF/F146a)

Appendix

Sample of comments received by County Treasurer's Department

"The Council Tax scheme is so unfair to every resident and I am fed up that pensioners get a discount only because they account for the largest voting group in the country. Council Tax is unfair for everyone not just the old or the poor. For the services I receive and the services I use I should pay no more than 30% of what I am currently paying."

"Again we see unnecessarily large increases in Council Tax. I write each year and each year you tell me how great you are and what a great service you provide but I see none of it. So this year HCC has an increase of 3.5% which as you put in your leaflet is the smallest in 35 years. I don't think you should publish that and be proud of it, I think you should be ashamed. Inflation as confirmed today in the Budget speech is 1.6%."

"I was very disappointed with your leaflet. As the biggest part of my Council Tax pays for the services you provide I expected much more information."

"Whilst I am gratified to find that the increases for 2005/06 are being kept in line with inflation, in absolute terms the amounts payable are now quite significant. Under the current national Government the system for local taxation is not a matter over which either of you have any control. However, so that I might be adequately informed to raise this issue with my MP, I would be grateful to know approximately what proportions of the population in Hampshire and Hart respectively are Council Tax payers. I suspect that an increasing proportion of the tax is being paid by a declining proportion of the population."

"Since the Bands are the same for County and District I can see the possibility of a further mismatch between the amounts raised in Council Tax. In theory one District could be comprised almost solely of properties in the higher Bands and the rest of the County almost entirely in lower Bands."