So Council Tax has doubled- But what about the full facts ?

The Halifax has produced a report that shows that since 1997 Council Tax has almost doubled.

This might be an interesting figure in itself, but it seems to be a report aimed at having a swipe at council when really it is the government that is to blame.

What the Halifax needed to examine was how much the central government grant to councils had risen by during this period and had the grant increased to cover extra costs that councils have been forced to undertake as part of the government's plans to palm off responsibility to local councils.

Of course, the Halifax report makes no reference to central government funding so it is fatally floored.

The fact that councils now have to meet recycling targets, something that has been imposed from central government with no extra funding from Whitehall to cover this, is something that the Halifax simply ignore. In addition, responsibilities like licensing, formerly a central government expense, now palmed off without additional funding to local government, is again ignored. All this and a host of other things show why simply quoting headline figures like "Council tax doubles in ten years" is ignorant.

It is too easy to blame local councils, and that is what labour want to see happen. They know that be failing to provide enough money to council from central government it is the councils, largely run by Tories or Lib Dems who get the blame.

So are we to guess that someone senior in The Halifax is after a peerage or wants to chair a QUANGO ?