Democracy

Agenda item

Council Tax Reduction Scheme 2022/23

Minutes:

The Executive Member for Environment and Finance & Governance and the Director of Finance submitted a report for the Executive’s consideration. The purpose of the report was to request permission to undertake a consultation (a requirement of schedule 1A of the Local Government Finance Act 1992) with both the public and the Major Precepting Authorities in respect of proposed changes to the Council’s CTR Scheme with effect from 1 April 2022.

 

It was proposed that an alternative approach be taken from 2022/23, through the redesign of the scheme to address all of the main areas highlighted in the submitted report.  

 

Work had been ongoing since early 2021 on a proposed alternative scheme, which was now complete. Consultation now needed to be undertaken with the public and the Major Precepting authorities. If accepted by the Council, the proposed alternative scheme would take effect from 1 April 2022.

 

The proposed alternative scheme had a number of features, which were included at paragraph 17 of the submitted report. Paragraph 18 provided details of how the proposed alternative scheme planned to address the problems with the current scheme.

 

OPTIONS

 

The alternative to introducing a proposed alternative scheme for CTR from 2022/23 was to leave the existing scheme in place. That would have been a short-term option; leading to increasing costs of administration; and in the longer term, would have significantly affected the collection of Council Tax and the effectiveness of the scheme to support households within the Council’s area.

 

Modelling (see table below) had also been done on an alternative ‘income grid’ scheme with 85% maximum support and 100% maximum support. The principles of that scheme were exactly as described earlier in the report (see paragraph 17), however, given weight to the options appraisal/rationale (Appendix C) those were not recommended.

 

Option

Scheme / Support

Cost / Saving to the Council

Support

Recommended / Not Recommended

1

Income Banded Scheme – 85% maximum support

£700,000 saving

85% - similar to existing support

Not recommended – See Appendix C

2

Income Banded Scheme – 90% maximum support

£70,000 saving

90% - 5% increase on existing support

Recommended – See Appendix C

3

Income Band – 100% maximum support

£1,000,000 cost to the council

100% - 15% increase in support

Not recommended – See Appendix C.

 

ORDERED

 

That the commencement of consultation on a maximum Council Tax Reduction Scheme of 90%, be approved, with the following:

 

·        with Major Preceptors on the proposed changes to the working age Council Tax Reduction (CTR) scheme with effect from 1st April 2022 (as required by the Local Government Finance Act 1992); and

·        with the public on the proposed changes to the working age Council Tax Reduction (CTR) scheme with effect from 1st April 2022 (as required by the Local Government Finance Act 1992.

 

REASON

 

The proposed changes, planned to simplify a complicated scheme, further assist low income households and support the collection of council tax, whilst also fulfilling the obligations on local authorities to support the roll out of Universal Credit. 

 

Any changes to the existing scheme were subject to full consultation which would likely run from the middle of October 2021 for a period of 6 weeks and would inform the scheme from 1 April 2022. 

 

Attached as Appendix B of the submitted report were examples of the likely consultation areas/options.

Supporting documents: