COUNCILLORS capped by the Government for trying to bring in too high a council tax level have ignored officer advice to avoid a repeat.

Hambleton District Council was capped in 2005 when it tried to bring a council tax precept rise in of 17.6 per cent.

The move would have led to council tax bill increases of around £12 which would still have made it one of the lowest rates nationally.

This year council officers told the authority’s cabinet committee the tax level should rise by 4.95 per cent.

This meant it was just below the five per cent threshold set by the Government above which it would start to cap councils.

To avoid any chance of a second capping the cabinet committee has instead voted to support a tax rise of 3.92 per cent.

This equates to a rise on a band D property of £3.30 for the year, or 6p per week, bringing it up to £87.30 a year, if the full district council agrees to the move next month.

Councillor Arthur Barker, leader of the council, said: "The Government wants council tax increases to be substantially lower than five per cent.

"I’m not sure that we are adequately listening to what the Government says if we ask for a rise of 4.95 per cent.

"The Government has indicated that it wants to see rises in council tax kept low – and a 6p per week increase is in line with this."

Councillor Brian Phillips, deputy leader of the council, said: "We don’t want to be putting ourselves in line to be possibly capped again."

If the council agrees to the lower precept level it will mean the authority will have to find an extra £30,000 of savings.

This means the council is looking to make total savings of £201,000 over the next year.

Councillor John Morley said: "We are right to go below the five per cent precept mark due to what happened last time."

Councillor Tony Hall added that he agreed a figure of 4.95 per cent was too close to the cut off figure before the Government began to cap councils.