Council tax

It's an absolute disgrace that the councils incompetance and mismanagement (and I wouldn't rule out corruption) leads to them trying to take more from already struggling people.

What more is there to say?

 

Thieving bastards.
That is all!

 

I don't know how they can have the cheek to try to get an extra 15% out of the people that do pay when there's £35m outstanding from the people that don't.

There should be some sort of rule in place that you can't put Council Tax up at all until you've collected 95% of the revenue from the previous year? It's a piss take and what do you get for this?

 

Get ready for the push of the line that it is still the lowest in West Yorkshire

 

What do you expect from an incompetent Labour led council. Absolutely disgraceful.

 

What strikes me is that Susan Hinchcliffe has been council leader for what is now coming up to 9 years. What she is asking for is a rise in council tax to 15% but she is trying to avoid the actual protocol where such rises are made. To raise council tax over 5% a local referendum is required.

"Any authority proposing an excessive increase in council tax must hold a local referendum and obtain a ‘yes’ vote before implementing the increase. An authority proposing an excessive increase must also make substitute calculations, based on a non-excessive council tax level. This is implemented if the excessive increase is rejected in the referendum."

By going straight to government to request permission he is trying to avoid the proper procedure knowing full well the public would tell her where to go.

What we have here is a leader completely out of ideas and looking to cling on to her job come what may. Any acceptance of failure on this level would surely see the leadership change as the very minimum for such an increase to be granted. Why is raising council tax by 15% the only option seemingly on the table, why isn't a change of the leader who got us to this position.

For Bradford Live, accounts were filed with companies house within the set deadline set by companies house. They showed the liability due to Bradford Council rise from £5m to £13m in the period of March 2022 to March 2023. It appears that for whatever reason the accounts for March 2024 are not going to be submitted to Companies House until 1 year after the year end rather than the usual 9 months. One can only summarise that the £13m liability to Bradford Council was breached £20m+ and that is to March 2024 only, we have had another 9 months on top. We could be looking at figures of £25m+ even £30m+ as a potential liability to Bradford Council which may never be paid back.

Children's services were lost by the council under Susan Hinchcliffe's time as leader, she span it at the time as "We acknowledge that the pace of improvement has been too slow since 2018 and fully accept Ofsted’s findings." when in reality the report said this "widespread and serious failures across every single area of Children’s Services in our District, with Ofsted specifically stating that since their 2018 inspection "corporate and senior leaders have failed to improve services, and have overseen further decline”. There was no improvement, the report stated that they had further declined.

Did she resign? No, even after Star Hobson was murdered after being referred to children's services on multiple occasions.

Children's services out of the control of Bradford Council now swallows 65% of the budget, and this is all down to the leadership failing to get a hand on the task in the last decade.

Add to that Bradford Live has no opening date or operator, the Darley Street Market has no opening date, is over budget and the council pushed out some guff about market traders prefering to stay in Kirkgate over Christmas, the One City Park has merely seen £35m spent so a company can move offices across the road and still see 3 floors unlet and an empty building over the road. A bus station that has been patched up for the City of Culture year, a car park bought for over £4m to be knocked down, everything Alex Ross Shaw touches turn to shit, etc.

We are expected to pick up the tab for people who have zero business, management or redevlopement skills trying to play SimCity, and with the way the council elections go it is impossible to change it as high tax paying areas are strangled for cash (Ilkley etc) just to pet projects can be held outside Hinchcliffe Towers.

Last week was a prime example, 160+ schools closed, but every street and pavement around the RISE event in Bradford City centre having multiple workers shovelling grit. If Bradford Council was a private business it would have been bankcrupt years ago, and absolutely no public business would look at the current leadership of Bradford Council and consider them for a job.

Sorry for the long rant but every word is truth.

 

All these cut backs they've had to make every year for about a decade, tens of millions. What on earth were they spending it on in the first place? I know public services are shocking now due to Tory cutbacks but they were never that great in the first place.

 

Not a Bradford resident but this is scandalous what would happen if everyone refused to pay would take years to prosecute all the none payers as @Aaron Baker said there should be a rule that it can't be increased unless they have collected up to 95% from previous year
My council said that due to "cutbacks" only certain roads would be gritted I sent a letter saying that due to my "cutbacks" I am only paying 80% surprisingly not had a reply
Whilst the honest working man (the easy target) "pays up and smiles he will be taken advantage of", it's the way of life am afraid

 

Funny you mention streets, pavements and grit. At the same time they were all 'hard at work' n the city centre, a friend of mine I sometimes do work with was working in a school not far outside the city centre doing contract work At the same school were some other construction contractors, he wondered what exactly they had come to do. Turns out a van full of them had come, not to do anything in the construction sector but we're there to clear snow. Hardly lifted a finger till dinner time, then did a few hours and were off.
All being paid their normal rates by the contractor, while my mate did his maintenance work.
I'm estimating the invoice will be in the four figures and will expect other schools and public buildings will also be doing the same.

 

This needs to be the action of all Bradford council tax payers, I for one am not prepared to pay any increase over the national average to such a set of incompetent lying arseholes not fit to run a bath.

 

The T&A really need to question Bradford Council and ask why Susan Hinchcliffe is going outside of the rules in order to try and increase council tax by this much. Clearly she is only doing this as she thinks she has the ear of a Labour minister as she would never had tried this before.

 

It's completely unjustified for her to ask the tax payers of Bradford to fund her incompetence. It's actually insulting to anyone with a modicum of intelligence. I mean, it's not rocket science that if you are cash strapped at home you don't go out and buy a car do you? Same analogy with the Odeon, had they been transparent and told the public this vanity project is gonna end up cost you the tax payer money, again due to our utter incompetence, I'd have said pull the bloody thing down. Pretty much the answer to any of these hair brained schemes Ross Shaw is in charge of. I'm sick to death of politicians, councillors and the line thinking they can get away with irresponsible actions with no consequences.

 

I've sent an e-mail to my ward councillors (Whom happen to be Labour even though we have a Tory MP) basically asking them if they agree with the fact their leader appear to be bypassing protocol by not having a local referendum to ask the public if they support a 15% council tax increase. I also asked them if they would back this proposal of a 15% raise and if they could explain to their ward why they do, and finally I asked is Susan Hinchcliffe and Ross Shaw, really the best Bradford Labour have to offer.

I doubt I will get a response.

 

If Hinchcliffe was Captain of the Titanic, the call "Man the lifeboats, Captain and Officers first!!" would have been annoucned.

 

Lessons will be learned, all staff have gone on Iceberg awareness coursea