When he proudly announced that he would not be increasing London’s GLA precept this year, I wonder if Boris Johnson knew that George Osborne was going to hold Councils to a maximum 2.5% council tax increase from 2010 onwards if they got into power?
After all, this means that Boris now has the prospect of three years of zero real terms growth in budgets to look forward to, should there be a conservative government elected in 2010.
Of course, as a determined tax cutter, I’m sure Boris will relish the thought of holding down London’s budgets, especially by ensuring there are either reduced budgets or no extra spending on police, fire, transport and economic development over the next three years. Especially as there’s no danger that Transport for London or other agencies will face increased cost pressures that might lead to further price rises and Boris has already announced he wants to reduce his projected income stream from congestion charging.
I don’t know enough about the detailed GLA, MPA, LDA and Fire budgets to guess how difficult it will be for Boris and his team to manage negative real terms budgets for his entire preiod of office, but I wonder if Dave Hill, Tory Troll and Boris Watch might be interested into looking at this in more detail.
Boris has already cut the police budget this year, so has he much more space to operate in? Or is it possible that Osborne just threw Boris Johnson’s financial plans under a bus?
1 Comment
October 3, 2008 at 10:43 pm
Is the GLA tab – including those various precepts as in other authorities and a kind of super-precept – outwith this policy? It will not matter anyway. Cam will not win.