Ministerial failures to promise the report would be published at all are believed to have prompted the former Birmingham City Council chief to get a hard date from officials of when they intended to publish his findings.
But the report is unlikely to be unveiled before councils have set their taxes for next year – possibly to allow it to form a good defence for the Government, should the annual media row over tax levels erupt.
In its last submission to the Lyons review before it is submitted, within weeks, the Local Government Association (LGA) has called for an independent commission to ‘referee’ funding rows between central and local government.
It would oversee rises to council taxes, local government charges and – if they were relocalised – businesses rates.
The commission, dubbed ‘OFTAX’ by the LGA, would also have control over distribution of grant and equalisation mechanisms.
LGA chairman, Lord Bruce-Lockhart, said both the public and councils were ‘tired of having to watch the annual wrangle’ over funding for services. The commission would ‘be a way of keeping the tax out of politics and could well bring an end to large council tax rises’.
Proposals for OFTAX offer a safeguard to back up the LGA’s case for returning business rates to local control.
