Hackney,
30
August
2017
|
15:35
Europe/London

Have your say on proposed changes to Hackney's Council Tax Reduction Scheme

Hackney Town Hall

Hackney Council is consulting on proposals to update its Council Tax Reduction Scheme.

The Council Tax Reduction Scheme (CTRS) helps residents on low incomes to pay for their Council Tax. The amount of support a household can get through the scheme is determined through a “means test”. At the moment, the CTRS helps around 32,000 Hackney residents and costs around £25.5 million a year to deliver.

The scheme has remained unchanged since it was introduced in April 2013 and is now out of date. It no longer aligns with other means-tested benefits, meaning that the current scheme has become less beneficial for working households in comparison to non-working households. It is not designed to interact with the government’s Universal Credit system – and as this expands it is important that the scheme is adapted to work with it.

The scheme has also become too costly to administer in its current form. The cost of the scheme is predicted to rise by half a million pounds in 2018/19, with further increases in costs expected in 2019/20. This cost increase comes at a time when the Council faces significant financial and budgetary pressures due to cuts in funding from central government.

Under the current scheme, a Hackney resident liable for Council Tax could get up to 100% of the charge paid through the CTRS if they are a pensioner, or up to 85% of the charge paid if they are a working age household.

A consultation on proposed changes, which would come into force on 1 April 2018, invites feedback on the Council’s preferred option, which includes increasing the minimum contribution all working age CTRS claimants pay from 15% to 20% of their total Council Tax liability.

For a single person with no children, receiving Employment Support Allowance, living in a Band B property, this would see the amount they pay per week increased from £2.23 to £4.09.

Pensioners will not be affected.

When the government handed responsibility for administering Council Tax-related benefits to local government, it did so with a massive funding shortfall, on top of a huge reduction in overall funding for councils.

It’s not been an easy decision to increase the minimum contribution we ask working age households to pay. We considered many other options, as detailed in the consultation paper, and we will continue to provide extra support for the most vulnerable people. In addition, local care leavers will now be exempt from paying Council Tax and those fleeing domestic abuse will not have to pay it for a second property.

We think this is the fairest option but we want to know what residents and stakeholders think, so I’d encourage everyone to take part in the consultation to feed back their thoughts so that we can make a decision in the New Year.
Philip Glanville, Mayor of Hackney

The consultation will run until 6 November. To complete the consultation online visit https://consultation.hackney.gov.uk. If you would like to speak to someone about the scheme or to request a paper copy, call 020 8356 3399 or email benefits@hackney.gov.uk.