£50 to help beat crunch

David Ottewell and Nayha Kalia

July 09, 2009

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CONSIDERING CASH Manchester council

HOUSEHOLDERS could be given £50 to help them through the recession in a £10m handout by town hall bosses.

The decision by Manchester council to investigate a credit crunch windfall news comes as local authorities throughout the region are drawing up 'recession-busting' measures to stop unemployment soaring and businesses going bust.

Downturn

Parking has been made free in Rochdale and Middleton town centres after 3pm - with Trafford council bringing in a similar scheme next week. Tameside has set up a 'works first' scheme to help local businesses win public-sector contracts, while Oldham is holding workshops for companies to give advice on getting through the downturn.

'Cashback'

The Manchester 'cashback' scheme would mean every household in the city getting a cheque or a one-month reduction in council tax bills. It was been proposed by the opposition Liberal Democrats and the ruling Labour group agreed to investigate the idea. A motion was unanimously passed at a meeting of all councillors 'to ask the executive to help Manchester residents during the recession by considering whether an Efficiency Dividend of up to £50 per household can be paid back from our savings'. Officers will now draw up a report into the feasibility and cost-effectiveness of the proposal, which will be published as early as next week.

Expensive

Senior council sources warned last night that a similar scheme in London had proven extremely expensive to administer. There are just over 200,000 households in Manchester - meaning the total bill for 'cashback' payments could be asa much as £10m.

Underspent

Council departments underspent by £6.8m last year, while reduced interest rates mean town hall debt repayments have reduced dramatically. Senior Lib Dem councillor Simon Wheale said: "Since the council set its budget in March, figures released by the government show that there have been on average over 700 new claimants of Jobseekers' Allowance in the city every month.

"This is putting a huge strain on the household finances of residents across Manchester. In these circumstances it is important that significant savings, from which the council has recently benefited, are not just added to reserves."

Schemes

The 'cashback' scheme has been previously tested in the London borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Salford, Wigan, Tameside, Trafford, Bolton, Oldham, Rochdale, Stockport and Bury councils confirmed they are not currently planning any similar move but have drawn up other schemes to help residents through the downturn. Section two of the Local Government Act 2000 allows town halls to do 'anything which they consider is likely to promote or improve the economic, social and environmental well-being of their area'.

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thaitanium (09/07/2009 at 13:49)

Section two of the Local Government Act 2000 allows town halls to do 'anything which they consider is likely to promote or improve the economic, social and environmental well-being of their area'."
Is that a fact? If so a good start would be to sack every employee and make them reapply for their job but interviewed by people from the private sector. All social workers, debt & grief councillors told not to bother, team leaders also. This way a fortune would be saved.

Mad Welsh Scotsman, Cadishead (09/07/2009 at 13:50)

A financial advisor, who is a friend of my boss said at the beginning of the year, the government would have been better off giving everybody £5k each on the condition that they go out and spend it on anything they want, in order to get the money flowing in the market rather than giving billions to the banks to sit stagnent in a vault waiting to cover the bank managers pension fund.

Can you imagine introducing a tax holiday, say every 5 or 10 years for those who have actually paid continuous tax for that period, or even one month tax free income every year say Novemnber so people could spend it over Christmas, that would be a good incentive.

Mad Welsh Scotsman, Cadishead (09/07/2009 at 13:54)

As long as it is every houshold and not just those on benefits, who seem to get everything thrown at them at our expense (The taxpayers)

dessie, manchester (09/07/2009 at 13:58)

this council give back money!!

whoops i just seen a pig fly past my window!!

Tezza, Tyldesley (09/07/2009 at 14:41)

Mad Welsh Scotsman, Cadishead

Correct if the goverment gave eveybody £500k to pay off there debts it would have been cheaper than bailing out the banks ( but then we would not need the banks anymore, and so the MPs would have no extra jobs to do)

d1v1s1onby0, Wigan (09/07/2009 at 14:55)

A System similar to this worked very well in Australia and was responsible for them avoiding actually entering a formal recession.

Of course it was for $900 AUD and it was every PERSON not every household.

Typical that we only CONSIDER doing a half A$$$$$ed job

Gary Salamander (09/07/2009 at 14:57)

What a stupid idea. The economy needs public sector spending cuts and reduced public sector 'deadweight', not more bureaucrats occupying their cosy 9 to 5 lives shuffling our money around between those they deem worth recipients.

Still, at least it's an admission that they're milking us on the Council Tax in the first place.

Guten Tag, Manchester (09/07/2009 at 15:12)

They giveth with one hand, and take with the other. Beware!

Ace , manchester (09/07/2009 at 15:37)

Why not use that money to repair the roads and get rid of the road designers who design ways to create congestion?get rid of bus lanes and stop reducing road sizes by making roads norrower for parking and putting those stupid bollards in the way of traffic.MCC needs to slim its staff that includes "Richard Hood (leese)and his merry men" robbing the poor to make the rich,richer.

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Paul B (09/07/2009 at 15:47)

wow £50, thats gonna turn this economic disaster around i'nt it!!! Get a life!!

J. Peasmold Gruntfuttock, King of Peasmouldia (09/07/2009 at 16:06)

Sounds good to me. should just about cover 40 quids worth of painkillers and a bottle of scotch.

Is It Me? (09/07/2009 at 16:29)

Scotsman,they should gie it to only those NOT on benefits as nothing changes for them! Can't be anything cheaper than something FREE!

Bury Pensioner., Bury. (09/07/2009 at 16:30)

Free parking! Bury will no doubt increase their fees.

MPs gravy train, UK (09/07/2009 at 16:52)

Shocking. Why didn't they just decide NOT to increase council tax by 3% in April instead. Now they plan on spending money to give us a small amount back from reserves. If we don't need the reserve fund now, we didn't need it in April either. But of course, the £50 payment is given back equally, but council tax paid varies by value of the house. This is effectively wealth redistribution and not what we pay local council tax for.

Aneeq Qureshi (09/07/2009 at 16:56)

Gimme.

sarahx, manchester (09/07/2009 at 17:11)

What islikely to happen (if it ever comes off) is that the dole scroungers will be given a £50 cheque & the hard workers amongst us will be given £50 off our council tax bills regardless if we want to spend it on this or not.

scoobysnacks, rochdale (09/07/2009 at 17:23)

Mad Welsh Scotsman - so you think those on say 40k plus should still get the £50 handout? There are some on benefits who cheat the system but most were themselves taxpayers at some time before they were made redundant or became disabled. Maybe if you had the misfortune to be in that position you would have a bit more compassion instead of disdain for those on benefits.

meldroo, Oldham (09/07/2009 at 17:25)

I don't remember this ever being tried in Oldham. Our tight fisted council wouldn't give a door a bang.As for free parking, no chance round here. Not far to Rochdale and Middleton for shopping though!

chriso, manchester (09/07/2009 at 18:52)

£50 cash back, well that ill do me for starters as i can not even get one penny from the state after being made redundant, what worries me is that this might me a scam as to what the council may owe us and coucil tax rebate, as mnay home owners valuations have dropped blow the current market value, we could be looking at more than £50.
This also is just a bit of fluff as i can't imagine the council giving anyone anything but grief.
I need my £50 now!

petan, openshaw (09/07/2009 at 19:12)

What could I do with £50 not even going to think about it until it actually happens.

Andanotherthing, Mcr (09/07/2009 at 20:00)

£50 for Ciggies bring it on...,.Thanks Mr Karney

griffin, stockport (09/07/2009 at 20:23)

What a waste.
Give me all the £50's to go into the Town Hall and clear out the idiots who come up with these crazy ideas.

adge14, manchester (09/07/2009 at 21:29)

credit crunch? but they got the dosh to give out, don't make sense, lol.

the majority must be ignored, not north manchester (09/07/2009 at 23:53)

This is taxable and I do hope that Man' city council deduct tax beforehand, at the higher band, of course anyhow 50gbp is in reality peanuts

dessie, manchester (13/07/2009 at 07:54)

I WOULD SUGGEST IF AND ITS A VERY BIG IF WE GET THIS, ONLY PEOPLE IN EMPLOYMENT GET IT, SIMPLY BECAUSE WE PAY FOR THE ONES THAT DON'T WORK AS IT IS!!!

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