Mark Pack

Electoral Commission calls for local Council Tax referendums to be postponed

By | Wed 2nd November 2011 - 7:47 am

The Electoral Commission has called on Parliament to modify the Localism Bill to delay the proposed start date for local referendums on Council Tax levels, neighbourhood development plans and local authority structures (e.g. elected Mayors) from Spring 2012 to Spring 2013.

It’s forthright message, headlined (in capital letters no less): “IMPORTANT RECOMMENDATION TO PARLIAMENT” is that with the legislation not yet passed by Parliament, there will simply not be enough time between it being passed and the proposed first possible local referendum date for the contests to be properly run. Instead, it says implementation should be delayed by a year in order to provide a sufficient gap between legislation and implementation.

This sort of warning by the Electoral Commission has become a regular feature of autumnal politics as governments of different political complexions have pushed through legislation ahead of the following spring. However, in this case their views are being expressed in a particularly strident manner.

That is no doubt due to the fact that the creation of local referendums raises far more issues of administrative organisation than the changes introduced by previous rounds of legislation. In theory, for example, some lucky voters could get to vote in five different referendums on the same day in the spring, with those different referendums taking place across differing organisational boundaries.

Localism Bill: Electoral Commission briefing for Lords Third Reading

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3 Comments

  • Prue Bray 2nd Nov '11 - 8:03am

    Mark, think you mean 2012 to 2013, not 2011 to 2012!

  • David Boothroyd 2nd Nov '11 - 3:51pm

    The idea of binding referendums for local authorities wishing to raise tax was first raised in the early 1980s, but dismissed because it was unworkable.

    It came up again in 1990 as a way of solving the poll tax problem, but was dismissed because it was unworkable.

    There has been no fundamental change since that time that has suddenly made it workable.

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