No news about all the new things that the 4% increase will allow them to do for us all, like fix the roads, only that the 4% increase, along with the £22M of cost cutting they have lined up, will help them plug the gap in their £50M budget deficit.
What annoys me with Highland Council is that they don’t even bother to publish a single jot of information about what they plan to do with this year’s increase of 4% in the coming financial year, neither for that matter do they bother to tell you what they’ve done in the last financial year either.
We’ve lived in various parts of the UK including South Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Berkshire and Devon, and the councils in my experience are always ‘polite’ enough to tell you what they’ve spent your money on, and what they hope to do with it in the next year – not Highland Council though.
Each spring, a bit like Dick Turpin and his “stand and deliver”, a letter demanding a little bit more pops through your letterbox.
There are no details of their latest accounts, or the fact that their borrowing currently exceeds £1.1bn, with loan charges of £80m per annum.
I think we all deserve to know what our council taxes are being spent on so we can make an informed decision about just how well our council is performing, and who we should vote for the next time local elections come around.