Council tax freeze grants

Conference notes with concern that since the election in 2010, the Coalition
Government has used Freeze Grants as a means of keeping down Council Tax. These
are one-off Government payments to those Fire Authorities that do not raise their
Council Tax, and will result in a year on year budget shortfall in future years when the
grants stop.

Some Fire Authorities have accepted the freeze grant each year and plan to continue
to hold the Council Tax levy at the 2010 rate for the remainder of this Parliament. In
these cases, funding raised through the Council Tax could be left with a ‘real term’
shortfall running into millions of pounds when the freeze grants cease, this is on top of
the 25% cut to the Government Grant Settlements that is already being imposed.
The Government is not being honest with the electorate and is playing short term
politics. This will have long term repercussions to Fire Service funding, and lead to the
loss of more Firefighter posts, appliances and stations.

As part of the FBU’s ongoing campaign against cuts to Fire Service funding, this
Conference instructs the Executive Council to bring this issue to the attention of our
political supporters in Parliament and to the National Employers, with a view to
demanding that this funding time bomb is defused, and that at the very least, locally
raised funding keeps pace with inflation.