Rates process 'unsustainable' - Cllr Emmet Doyle

A Derry City and Strabane District councillor has claimed ratepayers locally are “carrying the can” for Stormont’s failure to multi-year budget and honour its agreed commitments.

Speaking to Derry Now ahead of Friday’s Final Briefing Rates Meeting, Cllr Emmet Doyle (Aontú) said: “Stormont effectively sets one year budgets and can very easily pull out its agreed funding commitments, leaving Council no choice but to step in and fill the gap. If we don’t do that, then it is the city and district that suffers.”

Cllr Doyle added: “Financially, things are becoming tighter and tighter and not necessarily because of any decisions Council is taking.

“Outside of the core services we are required to provide, such as waste, Council has approximately 10.1 million pounds a year to work with, to provide non-core services such as festivals. If these are salami-sliced, people will rightly question whether they are getting value for money.

“There are three scenarios in particular about which I am very concerned. The first is the fact that Council gets offered schemes all the time from government departments. The department concerned tells Council it has the funding for the four-year scheme, it is being rolled out and Council will not need to put any money in, just manage it in the Council area.

“Sometimes staff are employed on these schemes. Council agrees and in Year Two, the department comes back and says it no longer has the money to fund it for the remaining three years, it has become unbudgeted. As a result, Council is forced to scramble about to get the money.

“This has happened more than once and it is happening more often because departments are setting their budgets year by year,” said Cllr Doyle.

Cllr Doyle added that certain government departments also simply decide they will not carry out functions which are actually in their remits.

“The Department for Infrastructure Roads is particularly guilty of this,” said Cllr Doyle. “It will cut the grass on the verges in the city but point blank refuses to do it in the rural area. As a result, Council has to find the money to cut the grass verges in rural areas, as, naturally enough, rural ratepayers want the same service as people in urban areas.

“Council is also being left to carry the can on the duplication of services. Take Tourism NI, for example. People here are paying their taxes to make sure we get a fair crack of the whip when it comes to destination marketing. However, that is not happening, even though we are the second city of the North. As a result, we have had to create organisations like Visit Derry, which people are then funding via their rates.

“Then you have the Millennium Forum. During covid millions of pounds were handed out to arts’ organisations in Belfast and Derry got nothing. Consequently, ratepayers here are paying about £8,500 per week to the Millennium Forum. That should not be a ratepayer responsibility. It should be funded by central government.

“When you add those three issues together, Council funding is getting hammered from every single angle,” said Cllr Doyle.
Cllr Doyle said that no matter what rate is struck on Monday, next year’s rates process will begin at 9%.

He added: “How is that sustainable especially when the rate base has gone up by less than 1% so our funding has stayed exactly the same?

“The rates support grant has been gutted and it has been gutted on ministerial watch. All the money Council is getting is shrinking.

“People rightly expect the same service. Ultimately this whole process is starting to get to a point where, as far as I am concerned, it is unsustainable.

“Stormont is not funding local government the way it should be funded. Ratepayers are carrying the can for the fact Stormont effectively sets one year budgets and can very easily pull out of funding things, leaving Council with no choice but to step in and cover services.

“Ultimately, the crux is, if Stormont will not carry out its functions and Council does not do it, then it will be the City and District that will suffer.”