General Chat

Thanks eRRolSheep I instinctively knew it would not last and I for one will not be taking the bait ;-)

As somebody who has headed up a Marketing and Public Relations department in the public sector can I just say how narrow minded and naive I find some of the comments by JohnLovesEtc (no disrespect of course).
Maybe he would prefer certain services to be "farmed out" at even greater expense.
As for the comment about the retail sector. Is that not somewhat Utopian?


I agree with OneFootInTheGrave about things being lovely while they lasted.

John our rubbish has to be out at 7 also, and is rarelly collected till 9 at earliest ....BUT obviously they do not collect each street at the same time, so 'someone' DOES get theirs picked up at 7.

and you see, there's the rub...I would want 'Tree protection' for my rates, I want 'health and safety' to assess the pavements, and the places I use. So we would not be able to agree on where our rates were spent...and that is just TWO people lol.

16k Plus is not "meagre" savings John, many people work a life time and never manage to have that much in the bank. Many have just enough to cover a basic funeral.

And this of course is the problem...you can't compare pensioners and say all are the same...my friend who did not go out to work is comfortably off with lots to spare, my friend of the same age ( 70s) who worked her whole life has very little. Both still use the services provided for their rates though.

Rose. My first 3 actions if I was a councillor would be:

1. Send anyone packing who has a job title that includes Marketing, Public Relations, Health and Safety or Human Resources. Tree Protection - list goes on.
2. Stop these ridiculous councillor expenses and fees (£14k minimum per councillor here). Set up a charitable fund for those who are in financial bad way to claim so that no one is prevented financially from standing for office.
3. Make managers manage, or ship them out. Waste disposal is an example. We had a flyer telling us from 1st June that recycleable waste would be collected Thursday and we had to put it out at 7am. The earliest it has been collected since June 1st was this morning (Friday) at 8am. In retail, as you know, we managers would have been round late Thursday putting it in boots of our cars if our "team" could not manage to collect it Thursday morning.

Just seen your addition to post John, I agree that salaries to council employees, councillors ( and others) should not cost more than is fair ( and that view covers politicians at all levels of course ). No one wants to pay money for old rope.

When I was younger, I honestly thought that once you got to OAP age (60 for women, 65 for men) you had paid your dues and what you had left would give you a standard of living in old age. You would not have to pay income tax again, however high your income. And, if you did not have enough to feed and clothe yourself, your family helped you, and perhaps you would have to ask for benefits as a last resort.

I think June Farrow would probably think that she and her husband had always done the right thing, and had always tried to avoid being means tested to get benefits. And she is probably horrified that people suggest she down sizes or uses her meagre savings to pay bills that she cannot pay on a small income.

I know lots of people privately agree with her. I do. But few of us are brave enough or want to suffer the publicity and aggro that poor June has had to go through. So we pay up and smile and go back to our beans on toast. Whilst the young family next door on benefits............ :-(

But how would you make it fairer John?

Would a pensioner with 16K ( or 160K....as we don't know how MUCH over 16k she has) have to pay half the rates, while a person working on basic rate with no money in the bank would have to pay full whack? We all pay for services that are not relevant to us...why should older people pay for the childrens play park, why should young people pay for the pensioners services?

I know rates are high, but the services ( certainly here in comparison to what your money got in Wales) are very good. I can't really fault those that I see which make for a better community all told.

Well it "was" lovely to have a thread where everyone agrees with each other - while it lasted :-(

Penny has dropped. 8 years ago, when Rev Arnold Ridley was sent down for not paying all his council rates, he was surrounded by his supporters. But there was a small group with banners shouting across the busy A5 in Towcester. Banners said "Genes Reunited members appalled at greedy and selfish actions of Vicar." "Pay up, you old goat" and Dunk him in the Tove"

Now lets get same group together to tell June Farrow what we think.

Edit. Rose, I take your points well. I know that is why we have councillors to help us. But I would like to see how many staff my council employs who earn above £30k, and what they actually do. I would like to not have to contribute massive amounts to their pensions and benefits. And I would prefer councillors to be paid no wage and minimal expenses - which seemed to be the accepted way a few years ago.

To answer a point made by John

" If we had a mutual society deciding what we needed as local benefits and what we had to collect from our neighbourhood, the sum total would be very considerably less than these ridiculous bills we have been faced with for last 50 years."

Did they not do a TV experiment on that? for one week or month, a community only paid fo the services it wanted.... unfortunately they could not agree on what that was, so if I remember rightly they went without some of the essentials?

Would a community ( assuming we have such a thing) agree on bin collections, who did it. how much to pay; how often, whether a large family with a lot of rubbish should pay the same as a smaller one who had very little rubbish? apply that conundrum over all the services that are paid for by rates.

Rose :-) :-)

We need another Jack Jones. Whenever my old Vicar appeared at Towcester Magistrates Court in 2005, there was usually a largish crowd to support his rebellion. He got a lot of coverage in local and national press.

He was happy to go to prison, just like this lady is happy to go to prison. But, just a word of caution. Rev Arnold found his week banged up was not as easy or pleasurable as he had expected.

I note from this thread that few of the contributors would stand shoulder to shoulder outside Towcester Magistrates Court or South Northants Council offices to get a fairer council tax deal for the elderly. I WOULD :-)

I take the point that she is not paying as a matter of principle...but in that case, you make it national, you campaign, you get other like minded people together , you take it to a higher court etc.

BUT if she has money in the bank to pay the bill I think she should pay it , if at the same time she wants to protest, then do so...through the ways I have suggested above, through the papers, through her local councillors and MP, try and get Age Concern etc to champion the cause of reduced rates for pensioners and so on.

Yes, Hayley, you were right :-) Couldn't resist sticking my four pennyworth in. I did intend not to contribute to any threads apart from Christian thread occasionally.

But have been watching this "debate" develop with some consternation. CupCakes has not even given her opinion yet, and I don't blame her. I have some sympathy for this lady in Norfolk, and know I will be attacked for being sympathetic.

Of course, this lady is a rebel and seems to be on a loser. But in the past, pensioners who have tried to avoid council tax have been dealt with and sent to prison as martyrs. Our local Vicar in Northants (Rev Arnold Ridley) went to prison eventually for a week and felt he had beaten the authorities (that was in 2005 and was a protest about not paying any increase in council tax that bust through inflation).

Yes, they are pyrrhic victories and Cynthia is right - "we render unto Caesar what is Caesar's". I pay my Council Tax dutifully, but it doesn't stop me wondering where on earth I benefit. If we had a mutual society deciding what we needed as local benefits and what we had to collect from our neighbourhood, the sum total would be very considerably less than these ridiculous bills we have been faced with for last 50 years.

Personally, I think the system is all wrong for older people on fairly fixed incomes. If you live in a large private house you pay £200, if you live in a small flat you pay £100. If you live alone instead you get a 25% discount.

If the policy was changed to:
1. Once you are over OAP age for a man or woman (whichever is highest age), you pay the lowest band - whatever size your house is.
2. If in single occupancy over OAP age, you pay half of lowest band.
3. Once you are 10 years over OAP age, you pay no council tax at all.

Applying that logic to this lady in Bamburgh, if lowest council band is £1000 per year and she is now 73, she would now pay £500 per year for single occupancy. In 2 years time (aged 75) she would not have to pay any council tax at all.

I guess no-one likes paying taxes but it is all for a reason and life isn't about having everything for nothing.

This paying of taxes is an age old issue - right back to biblical times - when people were advised.......

Give to everyone what you owe them: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honour, then honour. - Romans.



It would be interesting if the OP could please return and discuss this issue with us in case there is something more to add to this interesting topic.


Cx

Yes, she does jax - I should have clarified that I meant the council tax valuation is the same as opposed to the poll tax system.

For example, we're in band E, if we couldn't afford the outgoings on our property we could move house to perhaps a band B property.

My sister has nine cats think a few have died she maybe down to six now :-D

Luckerly her horse lives at the stables

I get a discount for living on my own [haven't told them about my cat - shhhhhhh!!]

Does'nt your single lady get a 25% discount MC for living on her own?

Edit - Only saying that because I am sure my sister does

I do agree that there are different perspectives to the issue and it can depend on circumstances.

Looking at my own street, there's just me and Mr C in our house, next door is a single lady in her early seventies and on the other side is a couple who have 2 adult children, all earning. We all pay the same council tax - pretty much the scenario that BudgieRustler describes. But I guess we've just accepted that the council tax is based on the value of the property and that there's the option to downsize if we needed to cut outgoings.

I'm not saying that the council tax is necessarily fair but if one has a choice where they live they can exercise it.