Folkestone & Hythe Council Tax: The Numbers Were Blacked Out — the Bill Wasn’t

There’s a familiar annual trick in local government: lead with the smallest number you control, then hope nobody asks about the rest.

This year, Folkestone & Hythe District Council (FHDC) points residents at a tidy headline — a 2.99% rise in council tax. But in the same paperwork, to go before the Council’s Green led Cabinet tonight, it quietly admits the lived reality: “even where the District Council increase is limited to 2.99%, the overall increase including the precepts may exceed 2.99%.”

Then it does something worse than spin. It redacts the Kent Police and Kent Fire figures in its main preceptors table — even though those charges still land on every doormat.

It is hard to think of a clearer summary of the modern council tax experience: pay up, but don’t look too closely at the line items.

One bill, four authorities — and only one of them is talking about “2.99%”

A council tax bill is a bundle of separate demands collected together. FHDC itself says the bill includes sums for “Kent County Council, Kent Police & Crime Commissioner and Kent Fire & Rescue Service.”

The reason the 2.99% headline is such a distortion is simple: FHDC is not the main bill-setter. In its own “pence per pound” breakdown, FHDC shows Kent County Council taking 69.27p in every £1 of council tax, while FHDC’s own share is 12.37p. In plain English: most of what you pay is decided elsewhere.

So a 2.99% district rise can still sit inside a much larger overall increase — which FHDC also admits because “there is no referendum limit placed on town or parish councils.” (A referendum limit is the government cap above which an authority may have to hold a local vote.)

The redactions: police and fire are blacked out — but the totals aren’t

FHDC’s preceptors table helpfully prints last year’s and this year’s figures for the big players — and then blanks out the police and fire lines. Yet in the same documents, FHDC publishes the total Band D charge for each area. For Folkestone, the Band D total is £2,554.52.

FHDC also prints the components that make that total up. For Folkestone, the district-area figure (FHDC plus local items) is £410.96, and Kent County Council’s Band D precept is £1,758.60.

That means the combined police+fire element is not a mystery. It is simple subtraction:

£2,554.52 minus £1,758.60 minus £410.96 = £384.96 (police+fire combined).

So, despite the black marker pen, we already know what the council tax bill contains: £384.96 for police and fire together.

Kent Police: the “missing” figure is plainly stated in the CFO report

Kent Police’s own Chief Finance Officers Report does not redact the number. The report states: “A proposed increase in the precept of £15 a year, or 5.6% for a Band D property” and “A council tax for an average Band D property of £285.15.”

It even supplies the political sting: “Anything less than the £15 increase in the precept would require additional reductions in staffing…”

So the police precept is £285.15.

Kent Fire: once police is known, the fire figure drops out of FHDC’s totals

If police+fire together equal £384.96, and police alone is £285.15, then the Kent Fire & Rescue share must be:

£384.96 − £285.15 = £99.81.

That is not speculation. It is the inevitable consequence of FHDC publishing the total charge, publishing the county and district-area figures, and leaving residents to do the arithmetic the council chose not to print.

In other words: Kent Fire’s Band D charge is £99.81, derived directly from FHDC’s published total and the police CFO’s published precept.

So what does this mean in pounds and pence? Band D is up about £101

Once you stop staring at “2.99%” and start reading the bill as residents pay it, the picture is blunt.

From FHDC’s own table:

• FHDC element (including special expenses) rises from £304.81 to £313.92 (up £9.11).

• Average town/parish rises from £76.34 to £81.27 (up £4.93).

• Kent County Council rises from £1,691.19 to £1,758.60 (up £67.41).

• Kent Police rises by £15 to £285.15.

• Kent Fire rises from £94.86 to £99.81 (up £4.95) — with the 2026/27 figure derived as above and unredacted here.

Add those increases together and you get a Band D rise from 2025/26 of roughly:

£67.41 + £15.00 + £9.11 + £4.93 + £4.95 = £101.40.

That is the real-world “headline” for a typical Band D bill in the district — not 2.99%.

The deeper problem: if it’s chargeable, it’s printable

FHDC’s documents say council tax bills will show residents “the amount payable” for each authority.[14] Exactly. Which makes the redactions in the decision papers feel less like “data protection” and more like political protection.

Because it is not the council tax that is sensitive — it is the optics.

People are not confused by council tax because they can’t do maths. They’re confused because the presentation is designed to keep them looking at the smallest moving part. A 2.99% district rise is the politician’s comfort blanket. A £101 increase on Band D is what households actually have to find.

And when key lines are blacked out in the very papers that justify the bill, residents are entitled to ask a sharper question than “why is it going up?”

They are entitled to ask: who benefits from us not seeing the full numbers clearly, in one place, at the point the decision is made?

The Shepway Vox Team

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