Council Tax Support Scheme 2025/26

Overview

Why are we consulting you? 
Council tax support helps people on low income to pay their council tax. The amount awarded is based on the applicant’s income and spending needs and is deducted from their tax bill.

We want to make significant changes to the scheme to:

• make it easier to apply for support;
• reduce how often we make changes to amounts awarded;
• increase support to the most vulnerable households;
• make the scheme easier to administer;
• make the system work better for those receiving universal credit; and
• reduce the overall costs of the scheme to help the Council address future budget deficits.

If we make these changes, they will take effect in April 2025. The changes will only apply to working age applicants. Pension age applicants have their support calculated under a national scheme which is set by the Government.

We are seeking your views on the proposed changes. It should take around 10 minutes to fill in this consultation.

Why your views matter

Changes we are proposing 
The existing scheme has remained broadly unchanged since the Government required us to introduce it in 2013. We believe there are ways to make it more efficient and to better target support to the most vulnerable. The need for change has become pressing due to the introduction of universal credit, which is gradually replacing older benefits. Universal credit recipients need to provide us with a lot of information to claim council tax support and are subject to frequent changes in their entitlement (and therefore the amount of council tax they have to pay). This is both confusing for them and complicated for us to administer.

In summary we propose to change the scheme for working age applicants to:

• Place applicants into “income bands” rather than use their precise income. This will reduce the number of times a council tax bill will change due to small changes in income. Support to the some of the most vulnerable households will increase (up to 100% of tax payable in some circumstances). The maximum level of support for other households will fall from 80% of tax payable to 75% (Part 1)
• Simplify the way we calculate support when “non-dependent” adults (adults other than the applicant and their partner) reside in the household (Part 2)
• Disregard housing benefit and some elements of universal credit when we place applicants into an income band (Part 3)
• Support families by continuing to disregard child benefit when we place applicants into an income band, and make allowance for child-care costs when we calculate spending needs (Part 4)
• Continue to protect war pensioners by disregarding war pensions and war disablement pensions when we place applicants into an income band 
  (Part 5)
• Remove the “extended payment” provisions which apply when an applicant ceases to be entitled to support, to be consistent with the way universal credit works (Part 6)

Currently, applicants with savings in excess of £6,000 do not receive support. There is no plan to change this.

For those occupying properties in council tax band C or above, the scheme will continue to restrict support to the amount which would have been payable in respect of a band B property. To provide further support to vulnerable applicants, however, it is proposed that support will become payable up to the amount payable for a band C property.

If these changes were in place now, we estimate that:

• 4,200 households would be better off (primarily the most vulnerable);
• 13,500 households would be worse off, including 1,900 who would cease to receive any award. These 1,900 people are generally those who receive lower amounts of support under the current scheme.

Where an applicant receives reduced support and experiences exceptional hardship, they will be able to apply for extra help through the Council's Discretionary Hardship Scheme. We propose to increase the size of the hardship fund by 50% in each of the next two years.

Which households will be treated as vulnerable? 
Vulnerable households are those with disabilities which make it more difficult to find paid employment. We propose to define this as a household where the applicant, partner or a dependant receives any of the following:

• Middle or higher rate care component of the Disability Living Allowance;
• Enhanced rate of the Daily Living Component of Personal Independence Payments;
• Carers’ Allowance or the Carer's Element of Universal Credit;
• Income-related Employment & Support Allowance;
• the Support Component of Employment & Support Allowance; or
• Universal Credit with a Limited Capability for Work or Limited Capability for Work- and Work-Related Activity Element.

And additionally, where applicants or their partner are entitled to either of:

• Enhanced Disability Premium or Severe Disability Premium; or
• The Support Component of the Employment and Support Allowance

What happens next

Thank you for completing the questionnaire.

The consultation closes at midnight 10 November 2024.

We will listen carefully to what you tell us and take the responses into consideration when making a final decision on the 2025/26 scheme.

Following the decision, the full results from the consultation will be available on the Council's website.

Any new scheme will start on 1 April 2025. The City Council will consider the impact of the scheme annually and consult again if it thinks further changes need to be made.