Agenda item

(1)      Council Tax Support Scheme for 2022-23

The report seeks approval for the Local Council Tax Support Scheme for 2022-23 to con tinue to provide support at a maximum level of 92% of Council Tax liability (see pages 143-148). Members are asked to bring their copy of the scheme previously circulated.

(1)        Council Tax Support Scheme for 2022-23

The report sought approval for the local Council Tax (CT) Support Scheme for 2022-23 to continue to provide support at a maximum level of 92% of council tax liability.  

The report was introduced by Councillor Wearmouth. The S151 Officer advised that in addition to the CT support scheme, for the last two years the Council had offered discounts which had been funded by Government grants. In the 2020-21 financial year this had been £300, and £150 in the previous year. In the current year, this funding had been used to reduce CT bills for 13,353 claimants, and 13,040 had had no CT liability at all. Officers were looking at whether a similar scheme could be offered for the next financial year using unspent grant funding, probably at around £200-£300.

£2.4m was also available from the household support fund and it was proposed to continue the winter support programme from this which included food and fuel vouchers, food assistance during school holidays and cold weather payments. With the support which was available, it was likely that a similar number of claimants would be taken out of CT liability altogether again this year. Therefore there would be three schemes running alongside each other; the main CT support scheme, a discount scheme and the continuation of the winter assistance programme.

There were a number of member comments on this which included:-

·       Councillor Grimshaw did not support the report. She asked why the different sources of support could not be combined to enable the support scheme to be dismissed. The table of illustration comparing local authorities in the region did not impress her Group and she felt that Northumberland should be one of the two authorities who chose to provide 100% support. She provided some figures for members about the effects of Government policies on working age adults and urged the Administration to scrap the proposal.

·       Councillor Bawn referred members to the concise and detailed explanation which had been provided by the S151 Officer. The vast majority of claimants were not paying any council tax and the books had to be balanced. He understood that people were upset by the table contained in the report but the two most generous local authorities listed were not Labour run. This was a very sensible scheme with real additional support and he urged members to support it.

·       Councillor Ball urged the Administration to take the stress off people to apply for support if the funding was already there.

·       Councillor Robinson felt that the number of working age claimants was likely to greatly increase and asked if members could be provided with details of the three support schemes available so these could be passed on to constituents, or details included with council tax bills. Councillor Wearmouth agreed this could be done.

·       Councillor Dickinson asked members to note that this had gone from affecting 12,000 people when first introduced to nearly 17,000 and he agreed this was the tip of the iceberg. The barriers to accessing these support schemes meant that, for many, they were out of reach. The Administration needed to focus on its own area and the needs of the people it represented, and consider whether the three support schemes should be combined to cancel the 8%, or whether it wanted more people to be pushed into the same bracket and spend council funding chasing people for payments they could not make.

·       Councillor Hill paid credit to officers in the Communities Together team who had supported people through the pandemic and associated hardship and felt that 100% council tax support was the only option.

·       Councillor Reid asked if members could be informed about the number of people who actually paid anything and what they were asked to pay on average.

·       Councillor Dunn welcomed the questions being raised on the report by members and reiterated her concerns that the support schemes available were discretionary. However good referral partners were, there would always be some who fell through the net. She agreed with other speakers that the three funding streams should be amalgamated.

Councillor Wearmouth responded that the three funding streams from Government had to be administered separately. The S151 officer advised that the 8% for Band A equated to £97, for Band D it was £131, with most working age claimants in Bands A-C. The number paying anything in the current year was 3,313. The proposal was that equivalent support would be provided next financial year. If members agreed the report, no-one would have to apply for the discount, it would be automatically deducted from council tax bills as normal.

The report’s recommendations were proposed by Councillor Wearmouth and seconded by Councillor Sanderson. The required number of members supported a named vote on the matter, and on being put to the vote, the votes were cast as follows:-

FOR: 35

AGAINST: 26

It was therefore RESOLVED that County Council approve the Council Tax Support Scheme attached as Appendix 1 to the report to be adopted as the Council’s local scheme for 2022-23.