The figure for how much money the Labour government are taking from our tenants is now in. This year the Council Tenants of Cambridge will be sending £12.1 million to Gordon Brown.
Thats £12.1 million that we can't spend on improving homes for people in the city, or on providing extra affordable housing in the city to reduce the waiting list, or even on maintenance of the housing stock. It could hit our plans to refurbish sheltered housing.
It works out at £1500 per household.
The argument goes that it is right to take money from rich areas to subsidise poorer, but this isn't what happens. The people being hit for this cash are not the wealthiest in Cambridge, or those most able to pay. This is a tax on being a council tenant, and those include some of the most vulnerable in our society. It includes those in sheltered housing.
I try to avoid posting when angry, but whenever I start to write about the"negative subsidy" I get angry: This is not a fair way to address issues in housing provision, and it damages the services that the city can provide.
The Liberal Democrat run City Council continues to campaign against it, as does David Howarth, our MP. As will your Liberal Democrat ward councillors.
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2 comments:
Could you give some clarification on this. Is this the proportion of council tax that goes to central government, or something specific about rents paid by council tenents, or a pro-rata proportion of the council income from tenants that goes to central government?
Looking at the budget report, is this related to the Formlua Grant (since that looks like a similar value)? Does that come out of some specific bit of council income, or overall income?
Ah... (sorry, I'm being slow, working through this); am I right in thinking that the £12.1m is the total that the City have to pay central government, and that comes out of all council income (business rents and so on as well as housing rents). However, if you didn't need to give that to central government, then that whole sum could (or would?) be spent on improving council housing provision, at an average of £1500 per council-owned house?
I'm not trying to attack anything, just trying to work out the background to the numbers you posted.
This is just about council rents.
The government wanted to subsidise poor council housing (fair enough) at no cost to itself (this is the problem!).
The net government "subsidy" for the Housing Revenue Account (HRA) is to take 12.1 million pounds from us.
So we collect rents and other HRA incomes. And then we pay Whitehall the negative subsidy.
The 12.1million is from HRA to central government. If we didn't send it to government it could be spent on HRA issues.
Please email me if you want more clarification!
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