Council tax was only mentioned once by Jeremy Hunt in his almost hour-long speech setting out his awaited autumn statement on Thursday (November 17). But buried in a document published later which details the changes to public spending and taxation was a line that many local leaders had been dreading.
Local authorities will be allowed to raise council tax by 5 pc from April. Speaking in Parliament, the Chancellor described this simply as 'flexibilities' which will help put another £7.5bn into social care over the next two years.
Ultimately, it's up to each individual authority to decide if they raise council tax and if they use the maximum increase available to them without a referendum. But faced with multi-million-pound budget gaps, unless government funding increases in line with inflation, some town halls say they'll have little choice.
