Agenda item

The Board was presented with the results of the public consultation on the ‘Council Tax Reduction Scheme’.  Attached at Appendix 1 were the Council Tax Reduction Scheme Consultation responses, which consisted of 39 in total.  These were presented to the Board following the Special Corporate PPB meeting that was held in July 2012, which stated that the results of the consultation would be referred to the Board once completed.

The Board was reminded that as part of the 2010 Spending Review the Government announced an intention to localise support for Council Tax from 2013-14 and to reduce expenditure on this benefit by 10%.  The Welfare Reform Act 2012 provided for the abolition of Council Tax Benefit.  Provisions for the localisation of Council Tax support were included in the Local Government Finance Bill, which was currently before Parliament.  Further, it was expected that a one off transition to the new localised schemes of support would take place from 1 April 2013.

It was explained that although local authorities would be required to draw up their own scheme, there were certain areas which the Government was not leaving to local discretion.  The Government had stated that there would be a 10% overall reduction in the amount of expenditure on this scheme which meant that approximately £1.4m less would be paid out in help towards Council Tax in Halton.  Presently, Halton had a Council Tax Benefit caseload of 15.400; of these 6,400 were pensioner households (which it was intended would be no worse off) so non pensioner households would face an overall reduction of around 17%.

It was announced that the new scheme needed to be in place by April 2013 but in reality, due to the setting of Council Tax and billing process, a new scheme would need to be in place by October 2012. 

It was reported however that since the publication of this report, central Government announced that a grant of £100m would be divided between all Councils/Local Authorities across the Country to assist with the shortfalls they would be experiencing for the year 2013/14.  This would mean that £266,000 would be allocated to Halton, subject to a number of criteria being met.

The Board debated the matter and agreed that they would not recommend using the allocation of the £266,000 grant from the Government, based on the information they had available to them at the meeting, for the following reasons:

1.    Lack of clarity surrounding the rules;

2.    Timing of the application process, ie decisions from Government would not be given until January, giving insufficient time to implement the new arrangements;

3.    Even if the grant could be accessed, meeting its terms would still leave the Council around £600,000 still to find, depending on the final level of grant, money it had not got following the loss of £38m of various other grants over the last couple of years;

4.    It was a one-off payment, so only affected 2013/14.  The scheme would need revising again in 2014/15;

5.    The Council may have to reconsult on a new/different scheme and there was no time; and

6.    Time was running out to have the new scheme in place by January.

It was agreed therefore that the originally proposed ‘Council Tax Reduction Scheme’ be recommended to the Executive Board for adoption by the Council from 1 April 2013.

RESOLVED: That the ‘Council Tax Reduction Scheme’ as originally outlined be recommended to the Executive Board for adoption by the Council from 1 April 2013.