I despair at the triviality of the whole thing. Last time there was a £100 pound Council Tax refund, councils expended a lot of admin asking people how they wanted the money if there wasn't a Direct Debit set as the payment method, and also dealing with whingers in Bands E-I who were 'poor pensioners' or on Council Tax Support, and a separate fund was allocated for these people. The total compensation in the system probably reduced as we didn't get more efficient at producing energy or more efficient at identifying the hard cases who really needed help.
Then we find Mayoralties are to retain business rates receipts, while councils get the Council Tax, which will lead to an obvious conflict of interest when a 'change of use' application comes in to convert an empty unit from retail to residential. The Mayor will beg to give the owner a bit longer to find a retail tenant on a deserted high street while the Council leader will want to say 'make it so' and then the Council gets the property tax instead.
Why does Government always find the least efficient way to get anything done?
That was a good tea-time read, thanks.
I despair at the triviality of the whole thing. Last time there was a £100 pound Council Tax refund, councils expended a lot of admin asking people how they wanted the money if there wasn't a Direct Debit set as the payment method, and also dealing with whingers in Bands E-I who were 'poor pensioners' or on Council Tax Support, and a separate fund was allocated for these people. The total compensation in the system probably reduced as we didn't get more efficient at producing energy or more efficient at identifying the hard cases who really needed help.
Then we find Mayoralties are to retain business rates receipts, while councils get the Council Tax, which will lead to an obvious conflict of interest when a 'change of use' application comes in to convert an empty unit from retail to residential. The Mayor will beg to give the owner a bit longer to find a retail tenant on a deserted high street while the Council leader will want to say 'make it so' and then the Council gets the property tax instead.
Why does Government always find the least efficient way to get anything done?