I see that Martin Francis is once again avoiding the issue with regard to Brent Council. He suggests that Brent Council "fund" a more generous Council Tax Support scheme, without suggesting what public spending he would cut to pay for it. That is just a refusal to make a political choice. It is fair enough to say that protecting people on low incomes from further demands is a priority, but the cost of keeping the previous Council Tax Support system would have been more than £5 million a year. Identifying that level of funding in the current budget is the only credible way that the older system could be supported.
Incidentally, it looks entirely possible that (as predicted) Eric Pickles is about to cut funding for local welfare assistance which would further undermine people in extreme poverty. Perhaps attacking that cut would be a better use of time than demanding Brent Council do things it simply has not got the power to do. There again, I have argued before that Martin actually simply wants to attack Brent Council and the Labour Party.
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