METHODS AND PROBLEMS OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT 3OI

kind that is commonly let at a rent, e.g., a house, the rent which
a tenant would pay is the starting point of calculation;
alternatively, the cost of site and building will be calculated,
and the rateable value will be* the annual interest on this total.
Another method is to take the amount of money which the
property has earned in previous years as the basis. When, from
the values so calculated, deductions have been made to meet
the cost of keeping the premises in repair, a figure appears
known as the rateable value. Then, if the rateable value of a<
house is, for example, £100, a penny rate means that the occupier
will pay 8s. 46. a year. Areas which contain depressed industries,
and many poor and unemployed people, will clearly have the
heaviest expenditure on social services j and the high rates which
they are obliged to charge will discourage new industry. So the
whole area may be caught in a vicious circle, the high rates and
the poverty being both cause and effect of each other. Such a
situation has been partly remedied by the de-rating,policy of the
1929 Act, which provided that no rates should be charged on
agricultural properties, and that factories, workshops, and freight
transport undertakings should be reckoned at one quarter of their
rateable value. The result of th£ Rating Committee's work is a
Valuation List, which informs each owner of a property, of the
sum at which it has been assessed. Those who consider the
assessment too high, can appeal to the Assessments Committee.
The County is divided into Assessment Areas, which are some-
times the same as Rating Areas, but country districts are grouped
for this purpose by the County Councils. The Assessments
Committee is composed of people appointed by the rating
authority, and by the County Council; County Boroughs appoint
their own Committee, but one-third of the members will not be
Councillors. No one may belong both to a Rating and an Assess-
ment Committee, so that the latter may be an independent body
capable of judging the appeals fairly. The County Councils further
appoint Valuation Committees to survey the work of assessment,
and try to get the same methods adopted throughout the County.