You have basically hit the nail on the head that council tax rises are eaten up by pension costs, however it's not the councillors (ie the ones you vote for) who get a pension, it's the senior management of the council (who nobody votes for they just appoint each other) which eats up the council costs, especally their final sector pension schemes.

The papers have been full in recent weeks of stories about how "salaries in the public sector dwarf salaries in the private sector", I bet most public sector workers who are on somewhere between £12k and £22k wonder what they are on about.

However there are a lot of career public sector managers who do very well out of the council tax coffers. Once you have worked your way up to Grade 9 and above in the public sector spine points, you are earning good money and benefiting from good holidays and have a cracking pension scheme, the usual career progression is have a middle management job in one council, then get a slightly higher management in another council, then a slightly higher management in another council. You don't really need to perform well in these jobs, but it's good to do things like "restructures" because then you can put on your CV "i organised a restructure of x and y service" when you apply for your next job. If you move on and the restructure you organised at your last place makes things go tits up, well thats the problem of whoever stepped into your shoes.

If you do well as a public sector manager and by the age of 50 you get a high level job then you just need do that for a few years and then you can go for early retirement and spend the rest of your days drawing a cracking pension skewed up by your hefty final salary, with the council tax payer subsidising your retirement holidays in the Maldives. Also make sure you vote Conservative because you will have a big property and you don't want to be hit by inheritance tax, why should the taxpayer get back a share of what you've rightfully earned from the taxpayer?

Every year council taxes rise because of this interminable final salary pension scheme costing more and more to pay off those at the top end with the high pensions (i must add that the average joe public sector worker has a modest pension). I always reckon people can handle a tax increase if they see an output but you never see any output because services are always being cut or reduced over time, but taxes are always going up over time.

The other reason council taxes are high is because of the amount of people who can and should pay council tax but who avoid it. I know many many ex students who are now working and should pay council tax, but because they have one or two non council tax payers in their property they only put those names down, so the property becomes exempt. Councils are good at the intimidation approach to the elderly and vulnerable people who are a week or so late with their council tax instalment, sending them a letter stating that they could file for a commital to prison order against them etc.....but loads of people find it easy as pie to evade council tax and the council does nothing. Because of this, everybody elses council tax gets a premium put on it to cover for the revenue lost by the dodgers (usually recent ex students who are free riding by having student mates)

if you want to pick out all the cat poo first i will

Good grief Padders, I agree with you, the roads are abysmal and I too haven't seen any gritters or any signs of the roads being treated.

Don't make a habit of it life would be boring

dont get me going about the council. central heating broke last thurs no heating no hot water council says cant come out until next thurs no hot water for 1 week .thank god for gas fires

Actually these people have one of the most difficult times paying council tax.
One non-student living in a house with other students will still have to pay 75% of the total bill, as can be seen here rlhttps://www.adviceguide.org.uk/index/your_money/tax/council_tax.htm#Whohastopaycounciltaxrl.
75% of the council tax on 4 or 5 bed property can be a lot on a recent graduates wage.

Yes they have.

am guessing you dont live round the back streets of warrington

I have loads of bags outside my house

Thats the situation I'm in and it costs me £93 a month which is hard, but at the end of the day loads of people on low incomes pay their council tax so it can't be one rule for one and one for another.

The most annoying thing about the graduate council tax dodgers is that out of those who I know that do it, it's generally rich-kid syndrome, its the ones who had rich parents who subsidised them through uni and they took out their student loans to put in ISAs etc. There's an attitude amongst some rich kids of "why should I pay to subsidise the dossers....Daddy pays enough tax".

I'm guessing Angry Pirate is a binman.

save on binbags and the hassle of picking up rubbish from all over your garden by just feeding your rubbish to the local animals straight off!! tin cans can be tricky, but persist and it'll pay off!!

Hmmmm, why do you reckon that??...

the 1st few days of this awful weather they never gritted a single road..

[sizeIf you say so.[/size

But they have then?