by Richard Bridge

The recent announcement on council tax support left me feeling angry and despondent at the shameful treatment of the poorest residents in the city.

By throwing a few breadcrumbs in the form of a £55 reduction in council tax, the council does little to assuage the very real hardships many families face caused by the scheme, which are compounded by the maelstrom of welfare reform since 2010.

As a CAB advice worker during that period, I have seen the brutal effects of austerity on York’s poorest residents and neighbourhoods.

You can’t truly understand the experience unless you have lived through the day-to-day difficulties of ‘getting by’ but I have developed a huge admiration for the resilience and resourcefulness of those affected who do their best with very little, living in desperately hard situations.

People display generosity and decency despite being regularly belittled, patronised and demonised by large swathes of politicians and the media.

The York council tax support scheme is just one example of the disdain and lack of empathy shown to its poorest residents.

Nearly three years ago, a Labour administration put in place a horrendous scheme that asked the poorest residents to pay 30 per cent of council tax.

Only two schemes in the country were more draconian. Since the May elections, the new Labour Group has finally awoken to its inequity.

The new Coalition administration in York, whilst proposing a review, was forced into a rapid consultation by Cllr Neil Barnes’ astute work.

They made great noise in May that they would be a ‘listening’ administration but in this case neither listened to the Advice York research or the council’s consultation.

Advice York provided extensive and rigorous research, which highlighted the damaging effects of the scheme – increased debt, cutting back on food and heat, heightened stress and additional relationship problems.

They made a modest recommendation that the amount claimants should pay should be limited to avoid annual council tax debts racking up on top of each other (due to court recovery processes).

By asking claimants to pay 22.5 per cent, the Conservatives and Lib Dems perversely turned their back on that evidence-based research, bringing into question why the Council provided six-figure funding for Advice York only to ignore its recommendations.

Due to the level of feeling in York, the consultation received a massive response with most respondents suggesting claimants should pay no more than 10%. The Tory-Lib Dem Coalition justification for failing to listen to either the research or consultation is a consistent mantra - ‘changes must be paid for’. In effect, an appeal to everyday ‘anti-welfare commonsense’ – it is implicitly assumed there is no alternative.

Austerity though is a choice. Such rhetoric also ignores inconvenient facts. Joseph Rowntree Foundation highlighted the York scheme profited from its poorest residents to the tune of £680,000 a year.

Funds generated from council tax changes to empty properties raised over £1 million a year but apparently are now ‘baselined’ (grabbed for other budgets that are more politically palatable?).

Perhaps so, but remember this.

When green bins are emptied free of charge for York’s most affluent residents, its poorest residents are propelled into even deeper poverty.

While the review of councillors’ allowances seems right to avoid councillors being made up predominantly by a monied or retired class, claimants may ask with some puzzlement where the money comes from for a £4000 hike in the leaders’ pay.

When a swimming pool used by many middle-class residents is subsidised, it does so by sending many of its neighbours to the local foodbank. It shames us as a city and nation if we ignore the impacts these choices have on York’s poorest residents and look the other way.

  • This opinion article is written by guest columnist Richard Bridge. If you too are interested in writing on any particular issue, then please in the first instance email newsdesk@thepress.co.uk