The rise in your council tax

Council tax increase - figures in full

Nearly every household in London will see increases in the council tax bills dropping through their letterboxes this April. Figures leaked to the Evening Standard show all but three of the capital's town halls are planning to demand extra money, with the average bill expected to go up by nearly £52.

Some will increase by as much as 13 per cent, and will mean typical rises as high as £125 a year.

The hikes - which will dismay many Londoners already facing crippling costs of living in the capital - are disclosed in a leaked memorandum of provisional figures from the city's 33 town halls. While the final demands are being debated over the next few weeks, it is generally regarded that most will go ahead as indicated.

The Evening Standard has used the information to compile the table opposite, which shows how much readers in each borough can expect to be paying. The huge discrepancies in the figures reveal that more than ever before, how much council tax you pay will depend not on the value of your property, but on which borough you live in.

Best-off will be residents in Wandsworth, where bills will actually be cut this year, making them the lowest in the country. The Tory-run council will slash its demand for a Band D property - an average value house - from £452 down to £398.

But those living in identical homes across the border in neighbouring Richmond-upon-Thames will face bills of nearly £1,100 as the Liberal Democrat-run council increases its demands by nearly 10 per cent.

At least four other boroughs - Hackney, Kingston-upon-Thames, Havering and Camden - will send out Band D bills of over £1,000 for the first time.

This year's council tax demands come in advance of May's local government elections in London, which generally act as an incentive to councillors to set relatively lower bills than they otherwise might. Nonetheless, the table shows many town halls planning to impose increases well above the recommended Government level of 5.2 per cent.

That was set by Minister for London Nick Raynsford last December, when he announced an above-inflation increase of £402 million in extra spending grants for London councils this year. He said that should be enough to prevent "hefty" increases.

However the Association of London Government, the umbrella organisation for the city's 33 town halls, says the increases for this year appear to be reasonable overall.

It points out that year-on-year rises have seen overall council bills go up by only 23 per cent in the last five years - which the ALG says is well in line with inflation, and demonstrative of a new-found sense of parsimony. "London councils are traditionally seen as high-spending, which is a legacy from the Eighties when they got a fairly bad name in that respect, " said a spokesman.

"However, that has changed in recent years. The average Band D figure now across the whole of London for last year was only £841, which is lower than the average for England at £901."

This year's figures also include the £23 precept demanded by Mayor Ken Livingstone to fund his transport and policing plans.

As with any election year, the setting of April's bills inevitably reflects local politicians' thoughts about what might happen at the ballot boxes a month later.

Wandsworth hopes the cut in bills will help retain its comfortable Tory majority. Liberal Democrat-run Islington, which will defend a tiny lead over Labour in the election, hopes a £10 cut on Band D rates will likewise keep it in power.

Labour-run Haringey - still reeling from the Victoria Climbie scandal - also plans to increase council tax by no more than Mr Livingstone's £23 precept.

Wandsworth - which has been among the lowestcharging councils for 20 years - claimed its new rate would have no impact on services. Deputy leader Maurice Heaster said: "Once again we are delivering the lowest council tax bills in the country, but we will still deliver services of the highest quality."

But Labour group leader Tony Belton claimed it was simply an "electoral bribe", saying: "Before every election Wandsworth cuts its council tax and then puts it up by far more the year afterwards. It is simply a cynical electoral ploy."

Richmond's planned rise will brew a storm of protest from residents who already pay the third highest council tax in the country. Despite being one of Britain's wealthiest areas, its residents have for several years shouldered the kind of council tax levels normally associated with inner-London boroughs.

So is it purely a question of the council's own inefficiency? Not surprisingly, that depends on who you ask. "The current regime is just incompetent and wasteful," said Tony Arbour, leader of Richmond's Conservat ive opposition. "It is the Liberal Democrats' rotten borough."

However, Richmond-upon-Thames leader Serge Lourie claims the borough's affluence means it gets far less money than other councils in its annual grant from central government, which makes up around 50 per cent of its revenue. The rest comes half-and-half from council tax and business rates.

"Because we are perceived as a rich area we get considerably less, even though there are poor areas here as well as wealthy ones," said Mr Lourie. "We actually get one of the lowest amounts of grant per head of population, which simply isn't enough for our needs.

"We are concerned about our residents having to pay out a lot, and we did ask for a meeting with the Minister for London Nick Raynsford to discuss it, but nothing has happened. Richmond is being discriminated against."

But Mr Arbour added: "It is simply a question of councils having to cut their clothes according to their cloth. Richmond should know by now that it is not getting quite the amount of money it wants - it shouldn't expect council tax payers to make up the shortfall."

The truth probably lies somewhere in between. Despite the political rhetoric that accompanies the setting of council taxes every year, there are so many variables to it that it is only of limited use as a barometer of town hall efficiency.

The ALG does not comment on the efficiency of individual councils. But a spokesman said: "Just because a council is highspending does not necessarily mean it is inefficient.

"Councils may also choose to spend a lot of money on certain services because that is what they feel their voters want. However, in that case the best way to examine whether council tax payers are getting value for their money is to examine the inspection reports by the likes of the Audit Commission and Ofsted.

"It also depends on whether the council still controls a lot of assets, and whether it is using cash reserves that it currently has to reduce the amount of council tax it wants. Bills may be very small one year and very big the next."

Cross the road and your bill goes up
Council tax increase - figures in full