Council Tax Reduction Scheme

Apply for Council Tax Reduction

You can apply for Council Tax Reduction if you are working age or a pensioner and on a low income, whether you're unemployed or working. If you have over £16,000 capital or savings, you will not normally be entitled to a reduction.  The £16,000 limit does not apply if you are on Guarantee Pension Credit.

If you have claimed or are receiving Universal Credit, you can get help towards your Council Tax costs from the council. 

You cannot claim this within your Universal Credit claim - you must make a separate application with the Council.

If you are unsure if you should be making a claim for Council Tax Reduction or if you would like more information, please contact the Benefits department:

• 01446 709244

Claim Council Tax Reduction

Extended Payments

In prescribed circumstances, an award of council tax support will be extended for a period of up to four weeks where entitlement to certain qualifying benefits ends due to:

• starting employment either employed or self-employed
• a claimant increasing working hours to 16 hours or more
• a partner increasing working hours to 24 hours or more
• increasing earnings to an amount that ends entitlement to Income Support/Job Seekers Allowance (Income Based)/Employment Support Allowance (Income Related) or (Income Based)/Severe Disablement Allowance / Employment Support Allowance (Contribution Based)

The aim is to help incentivise long-term unemployed, sick or disabled people to take up work, earn more income or work more hours. To qualify for extended payments:

• The claimant must expect their job or increased hours to last at least five weeks
• The claimant or their partner has been entitled to Employment and Support Allowance – Income related (ESA [IR]), Jobseekers Allowance – Income Based (JSA [IB]), Jobseekers Allowance – Contribution Based (JSA [C]) or Income Support continuously for at least 26 weeks (or any combination of these)

Immediately prior to starting work the customer or partner must have been on ESA (IR), JSA (IB) or Income Support.

The claimant or partner has been entitled to Employment and Support Allowance (contribution-based), Incapacity Benefit or Severe Disablement Allowance and again their job or increased hours is expected to last for five weeks or more and they have been entitled to the above benefit continuously for 26 weeks.

In both cases their benefit must cease due to the result of them starting work or increasing their hours.

The Council will continue to allow extended payments up to a maximum of four weeks because this incentivises people to work or take on extra hours of work and any claimant moving into employment is likely to receive their first payment from their new employer within this timescale.

War Pension Disregard

The council currently disregards the whole amount of War Widow and War Disablement pensions when calculating income for Housing and Council Tax benefit.

The Council will continue to disregard War Widow and War Disablement pensions in assessing income for Council Tax Support

Backdated Benefit

The current rules for backdating of a working age customer are:

• The claimant must make a request in writing
• The customer must show continuous good cause for his or her failure to make an earlier claim
• The claim cannot be backdated more than six months before the date of the written request.

'Good cause’ has been explained by tribunals and courts. The main principles are:‘ It includes any fact that would have probably cause a reasonable person to act as the claimant did’, but they are expected to take reasonable steps to ascertain what their rights may be.

Case Law establishes that good cause normally falls into four categories:

• The claimant was so ill (physically or mentally) or otherwise unable to act that they could not claim and could not ask someone to do it for them.
• Someone the claimant should have been able to rely on (such as the Local Authority, the DWP, an advice agency and possibly others) advised them they could not get HB/CTB when in fact they could.
• There were good reasons for the claimant not believing they could claim, amounting to more that just not thinking or caring
• Some external factor prevented the claimant from making a claim (e.g. failure of the postal service , imprisonment)