Sefton Council Tax Reaches its Maximum Limit: Where Is the Money Going?

SEFTON COUNCIL TAX UP 

- but where is the money going ?

Next week Sefton will set its budget for the next financial year and soon after new council tax bills will be churned out.

The Sefton Labour administration like most councils across England is likely to support the maximum 5% increase allowed without a referendum. 

However according to opposition leader, Liberal Democrat Cllr. John Pugh council tax payers are likely to be disappointed with what they get for the extra charge. 

According to analysis done by the Liberal Democrats of the Sefton budget over two thirds (67%) of council tax payers' cash is being spent on services many will never see and over a quarter (26%) is spent on Children’s Services and looked after children. The rest of the council's services - bins, street cleaning, highway maintenance, parks etc only a get  33p of the council tax payer's pound.

"This will shock many residents, ” says Cllr. Pugh , “ but to make matters worse, much of the money spent by Children's Services is paid out to private companies who run children's homes, with some residential placements costing an average of £25,000 a week. Some of these companies have now been bought up by offshore hedge funds who know a money spinner when they see one. Staff in children's homes I suspect will see very little of a company’s £25,000 a week charge. It’s not implausible to suggest that a cash-strapped pensioner in Sefton in paying their council tax is helping to fund a millionaire life style in Barbados.

“ We are all paying a heavy price for family breakdown,”  claims Cllr. Pugh but adds , “The situation in Sefton is mirrored across Britain with Sefton's expenditure on Childrens Services being just 3% above the average. Nonetheless the sums spent on children in care in Sefton are eye-watering, going from £28M to £82M in just five years as the Council threw money at the problem after a series of damning Ofsted reports.”

There have been attempts to re-establish council children’s homes on Merseyside with the City Region funding a trust with £2m of capital funding. However,Cllr Pugh believes this is too little too late.

“National governments have ignored and dodged this problem", he states , “ so trying to solve this major problem by co-operation between local councils is an important alternative, but the efforts made locally are simply not on the scale needed, providing only a handful of new places.”