Council tax explained

How your council tax bill is worked out

Council tax is charged against property value. Each home is put into one of eight council tax bands, according to its value on April 1, 1991. Most homes in Hull - that’s around 80 per cent - fall into Band A (because the property was valued at less than £40,000 in 1991). That means they will pay £797.21 this year. It’s a rise of £35.41 on last year, to take into account inflation and increased spending.

The increase is in line with a national average increase of 4.5 per cent and works out at less than £3 per month (that’s the price of an average jar of coffee).

Meanwhile, Hull still has one of the lowest council tax rates in the country. Separate parts of your bill are payments (or precepts) for the police and fire service.

What do you get for your money?

Council tax helps pay for vital services across the city, such as schools, housing and social services.

It also helps pay for many of the everyday services we take for granted, without which our world would practically fall into chaos.

Could we live comfortably, for example, without street lights, refuse collection, bus stops, gritter lorries and street cleaning? The list of services which council tax helps pay for goes on and on...

Then there are the hundreds of miles of roads and pavements in the city to maintain in safe working order. What about the beautiful parks and gardens across the city? What about Hull’s award-winning free museums? The money you pay in your council tax goes into part of a budget which is this year helping to pay for new services, including the expansion of the community wardens scheme and the introduction of a mobile ‘HandyVan service’, which provides support to vulnerable residents in their own homes. The free healthy school meals policy introduced last year will also continue.

Where does the rest of the council’s money come from?

Of course, the council couldn’t afford to pay for all its services with money collected from the council tax alone. In fact, only around 20 per cent of the council’s revenue actually comes from the council tax.

The rest of the money comes from central government, which uses a complex formula to allocate funds to each local authority in the country according to the level of population and an assessment of its needs.

Of the £335 million which the council has budgeted to spend over the next financial year (2006/7), around £67.2 million will come from the council tax, £140.8 million will come from the Dedicated Schools Grant, £104 million will come from the business rates, and £23.4 million will come from the Revenue Support Grant.