Government tight lipped on council tax threshold

The Government will not announce next year’s threshold level for council tax rises, which would trigger a referendum among voters, until mid-February it has been announced.
Speaking at a finance conference organised by the Local Government Association this week, local government Brandon Lewis said that figure would be revealed alongside the presentation of the final local government spending settlement to Parliament next month.
The news has provoked worries that councils will not have enough time to factor the rise into their budgets for 2014/15.
Sarah Selvanathan, strategic director of resources and deputy chief executive of Elmbridge Borough Council, told the minister: “Many councils start to set council taxes beginning February so the announcement coming in mid-February might be too late.”
A spokesman for the Local Government Association told Room151: “Last year, councils had a good six months indication of what the level would be. Clearly this time round they are not going to have time to find out what the threshold will be, draw up their budget and then consult on it.”
Lewis told the conference that the government had indicated last summer that this year’s threshold would be 2 per cent, but that he had received a number of representations that the figure should be lower this year.
He said: “If it does change, it won’t be going above 2 per cent.”
And he added that holding a referendum this year would be cost effective for councils due to the fact that elections for the European Parliament are taking place across the country in May.
According to reports, due to uncertainty about the threshold level, a number of councils are considering revising their budget plans for 2014/15 to accept government bonus grants which they would receive for freezing their council tax.
The Localism Act 2011 introduced the provision requiring any council which wishes to raise council tax above the defined threshold to hold a referendum on the changes.