Recommendation 5

We are pleased that the allocation of the £300 million grant for social care mitigates the distributional impact of the council tax rises, but we do not think the fairness of the funding model should be reliant on one-off, short-term grants. It is right that certain councils be compensated for low council tax bases, but this should be done through a more predictable means of funding equalisation. Council tax is also an increasingly regressive tax that again penalises those in more deprived areas. A revaluation is long overdue. In the longer term, one possibility that could be considered is a proportional property tax.