New Homes Bonus or Tory Fiddle

NEW HOMES BONUS - or how we get screwed.

We have just been told what out New Homes Bonus is this Year. New homes Bonus is how the Tories Fiddle support to Councils to continue their screwing of the North.

Money to councils used to be based on need, the Tories scrapped that idea in favour of giving more money to the rich by basing what they give on the value of houses built.

We get £4,661,492

For instance Tower Hamlets get £20.7m, Wiltshire £12m Southwork £11.3m.

We get £10 per person, Westminster get £38 per person, to subsidise one of the richest parts of the country.

NEW HOMES BONUS WINNERS

NEW HOMES BONUS WINNERS

One of the "tweaks" Eric Pickles made to allow him to justify his shifting of money from Northern Authorities to the South East was called New Homes Bonus.

What he did was top sliced the grant (based on need) that went to all authorities and dished it out in proportion to new build, at local values. Ignoring the fact that since then it has been raided twice and the fact that the treasury handed itself a "Bonus" by the way it was phased in, it is intrinsically unfair. The amount is calculated on council tax averages, obviously the South East has much higher values.

Tower Hamlets tops the table with £23.93m with Cornwall coming in second (because of its size) at £17m. Leeds comes in at number six but had to build a load more houses that the others in the top ten as their value per house is much less. (they had to build 7 houses to the 5 of Newham say to get the same amount of money). Islington at number 10 got £11.9m, to put that in perspective, we got £7.15.


You will see from the table where the bulk of the money is going, but now that Javid has found it is an easy pot to raid, as he did this year, look out for more raids.


   

Now you see it - Now you don't.

The Javid Jive or Sajid Shuffle

The whole country, including believe it or not a lot of conservative councillors and MP's (yes I know that is hard to believe) know that Social Care is in a crisis. As the proportion of old people and others needing care rises the proportion of people in work falls. A "working age" population that would have fallen to a critical point without immigration. Councils are running out of money.

Everyone expected even a Conservative Chancellor to mention Social Care in his "Autumn" Budget, but he didn't, so the expectation fell on Sajid Javid to step up a come to the rescue.

The story begins with Eric (*** Controller) Pickles, who thought of a cracking wheeze called New Homes Bonus, a bribe to encourage councils to build more homes, not bad in itself but the way it works it rewards Southern councils twice as much as us in the North. He decided to pay for it by taking money from councils, money that was allocated on a basis of need. Now along comes Javid he decides to cut the New Homes Bonus, to give money to the councils who he just took it from to claim he is funding Social Care. Now you see it now you don't.

His second wheeze also goes back, this time  to George (the well paid speaker) Osbourne. He decided to increase the  minimum wage, to a level that was a bit nearer to, but not quite, a living wage. Again something that we can all applaud, but one consequence was that George saved all the money he was paying in Tax Credits, money he used to fund more tax cuts for his pals. This meant that the cost of Social care increased (to pay the new minimum wage), in Kirklees case about £2m. To pay for that we were allowed to put Council Tax, that you pay, up by 2% raising an amount that does not pay for the increase in Minimum wage. This year he is now saying we can put council tax up by another 3% (on top of the 2% he already allowed, making it a total of 5%) with another 5% next year.

So ignoring all the money they already collect in income tax, VAT, Fuel duty, tax on booze, corporation tax (apart from his pals who don't pay)cigarettes, insurance etc. etc. he is forcing Council tax up be 10%. The real tragedy is though is that will be nowhere enough to pay for the rising cost of Social Care.

Just add salt into the wounds, despite announcing cuts to the money going to individual schools he has also told us he is cutting the £5.5m Educational Support Grant that Kirklees gets to supply services to schools.