By Patrick Hennessy, Adam Lusher and Tom Harper, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 1:39am GMT 30/10/2006

People who live in areas with good schools, clean streets and low crime rates face huge increases in their council tax bills. Home owners and tenants will be charged hundreds, and possibly thousands, of pounds extra if they live in a “locality” deemed by ministers and officials to be more desirable than others. The rises could be as great as four times, sending some bills spiralling from £1,000 to £4,000...Sophisticated computer equipment will be used in the forthcoming revaluation of all 21 million homes in England, and will allow a precise value to be put on each home, not only by its size and features but also its location.
A system described as “intelligent proximity analysis” will allow valuation officials to differentiate between thousands of neighbourhoods and adjust bills accordingly.

The computer model will be able to classify each household on the basis of 287 “lifestyle variables”.

For the first time, data provided by the national census, school exam results and crime statistics will be fed into the calculations. Householder income, cohabitation and, in what many MPs will regard as a highly contentious move, ethnicity will be taken into account. The information being used by the Government distinguishes between “farming communities”, for example, and “multi-ethnic, crowded flats”.
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It’s based, apparently on a trial in Northern Ireland which has definitely created noisy losers:

Michael Kelly, 64, has been left perplexed, struggling to comprehend the estimate he received for his 2007-8 rates. “I’m currently paying just over £1,000, but in 2007-8 my bill is going to go up to nearly £4,000,” said Mr Kelly. “I get by on a civil service pension of £100 a week – how am I supposed to afford it?”

The only explanation he can think of relates to the computer and its failure to appreciate the difference between him and his former neighbour in Myrtlefield Park, Belfast. Mr Kelly, a retired civil servant, bought his Victorian semi back in 1983 for less than £50,000.

But his next-door neighbour spent thousands of pounds on a new roof, kitchen, bathroom and plumbing system, selling the house last year for £550,000.

Mr Kelly is now less than delighted, because he thinks the sale allowed the computer-assisted officials to value every house on the street at more than half a million pounds. “I would be lucky to get £300,000 for my house,” he said. “It’s in the same state it was in 1983. Now, because of this crazy system, I may have to sell up and leave. It is a disgrace.”

The Wibbi? Wouldn’t it be better if government were cheap, straighforward and non-invasive. 

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