A friend drew my attention to a posting on the Pembrokeshire Herald’s Facebook page in which the newspaper’s editor was effusive in his praise of Badger’s latest column (see below).
As the column in question was on increases in PCC’s council tax – a subject over which Herald columnist Badger and I have previously crossed swords – I was obviously keen to see what the “numbers really show” and the extent to which his “sharp wit and sharper analysis” had shed new light on the subject.
An extract from Badger’s column can be seen below and the whole piece should be found at Herald Page 46. Badger had done some calculations and concluded that PCC’s increase in council tax for the period 2018/19 to 2025/26 is 64.5% compared to the 75 % that I had claimed in the table at the end of my earlier post.
It seems that Badger concluded that this discrepency showed that my calculation of the percentages was flawed, and helpfully included a quick tutorial on the correct way to proceed. Had he bothered to check, before branding those who disagree with him “prannies” he would have found that I had used precisely the method he suggested and the reason for our difference lay elsewhere.
I had to look up “prannies” and, for the moment, I’m using the less offensive meaning of “idiot”.
Just a few paragraphs into his “brilliantly biting column”, I came across figures for PCC’s Band D council tax for the years 2018/19 (£1252.41) and 2025/26 (£2059.82) that I simply didn’t recognise.
And when I checked the council’s minutes I found that his figures were indeed inaccurate because PCC’s Band D charge for 2018/19 was £993.54 and for 2025/26 £1651.97.
What I first suspected was that these elevated figures included the police precept which was, of course, nothing to do with the subject under discussion: PCC’s Band D rate.
However while adding the police precept to PCC’s Band D rate came close to Badger’s numbers, it still wasn’t an exact match
So I emailed him seeking illumination.
He replied telling me that he had obtained his information from a Welsh Government website.
On logging on I found the Band D charges for Pembrokeshire just as he had reported, but when I clicked on the tab labelled “Summary information” I found:“Council tax is a charge levied on each domestic dwelling for the provision of local authority services. This includes elements for the county or county borough council, together with elements for the police authority and, if one exists, for the local community council.”
So, the reason I had not been able to reconcile our differing numbers by adding the police precept to PCC’s Band D rate was that Community Councils were also in the mix.
It goes without saying that an article on PCC’s council tax rate shouldn’t be contaminated by extraneous data about the cost of policing and community councils.
Of course, with a bit of due dilligence, Badger could have avoided this pratfall because I had recently posted a piece on PCC’s council tax levels which showed that, in 2024/25, in a table published by the county council itself, the Band D rate was £1510.72, and he must have known that it hadn’t increased by the £500+ required to get it to his £2059.82 for 2025/26.
Indeed, Badger must have known that the council had imposed an increase of 9.35%, so he should have been able to use his self-proclaimed expertise in calculating percentages to conclude that, as the increase on £1510 would be about £140, there must be something wrong with his figure of £2059.82.
There are two reasons why this is important: first the debate is about PCC’s Band D rate, and the police precept has nothing whatsoever to do with it, and second, over the years, the police precept has increased at a slower rate than PCC’s Band D charge and mixing them together brings down the average and throws all Badger’s carefully calculated percentages into disarray.
And if that wasn’t bad enough Badger then makes another blunder when he choses 2018/19 as the starting point for his calculations. He justifies this by pointing out that: “The current administration first set council tax in 2018/19 (the election in 2017 came after councillors set the council tax for that year). In 2018/19 the band D council tax for Pembrokeshire was £1252.41.”
But that £1252.41 includes the 12.5% increase imposed by the new administration in its very first budget so the Band D rate for 2017/18 that it inherited is the correct baseline figure.
As Badger says: if you read his column: “You might learn something.”
One lesson might be that you shouldn’t compare apples and pears.
And another, that you shouldn’t fall ito the trap of being dazzled by your own brilliance.
When I have the time, I’ll have a look at the rest of his musings to see if there are any other valuable lessons to be learned.
