Agenda item

To consider the report of the Assistant Director Customer Access.

The Assistant Director Customer Access presented the report seeking Members’ views on the local Council Tax Support (CTS) Scheme for working age residents for 2017-18. The local CTS Scheme started in April 2013 and Members were required to agree the Scheme rules annually.

The changes proposed had been presented to the Devon Local Government Steering Group meeting on 15 April 2016 by Devon County Council and District Heads of Finance. The preferred option at that meeting was to make a series of administrative changes to the CTS Scheme from April 2017 and introduce a Minimum Income Floor (MIF) for self-employed claimants. This option was felt to provide sufficient financial savings for the County Council - mostly through the introduction of MIF – and help to keep the CTS scheme in line with changes to national schemes. Since that meeting, the Devon Benefit Officer Group (made up of Revenues and Benefits officers from Devon districts, Plymouth and Torbay as well as finance representatives from the major preceptors) had worked to progress the preferred option.

The proposals were intended to help align the Council Tax Support scheme with changes already confirmed for Child Tax Credit from April 2017 and introduced to Housing Benefit in April 2016 and/or Universal Credit and reflected the increased understanding of Universal Credit as roll out continued. The Equality Impact Assessment and consultation indicated that impact on individuals was likely to be limited and that any resulting hardship could be managed through the Exceptional Hardship Fund.

Adopting all of the proposed changes would reduce the amount of Council Tax Support granted under the scheme, caseload modelling indicating that the maximum eventual savings would be £275,000 annually.

Members expressed concerns that the proposals, in many cases, did not reflect the realities of those suffering from difficult financial and personal circumstances and some felt that, whilst recognising that advantages would include eventual savings and a greater clarity for benefit claimants, they were unable to support the recommendations as a package.

In particular, the removal of the Family Premium for all new applicants had received the highest level of responses objecting to this proposal. Noting that the annual financial cost would be an average of approximately only £32 per family, Councillor Foale moved and Councillor Packham seconded the rejection of this proposal. This was carried.

People Scrutiny Committee noted the requirement to read and consider the contents of the accompanying Equality Impact Assessment in order to consider the impact of the proposals on relevant groups and recommended to Executive and Council that:-

(1)     the revised Exceptional Hardship policy be approved;

(2)     the proposal for removing Family Premium for all new applicants be not supported;

(3)     the following changes to the local Council Tax Support Scheme be approved;

a)    reducing backdating to 1 month;

b)    using a minimum income for self-employed earners after 1 year’s self-employment;

c)    reducing the period for which a person can be absent from Great Britain and still receive Council Tax Support to 4 weeks;

d)    removing the Work Related Activity Component in the calculation of the entitlement for new applicants;

e)     removing entitlement to the Severe Disability Premium where another person is paid Universal Credit (Carers Element) for looking after them; and

f)     removing entitlement to the additional earnings disregard for Universal Credit customers in work;

(4)        delaying implementation of change to 2d) above to 1 April 2018 if the policy is introduced to Housing Benefit from a date after 1 April 2017; and

(5)        not adopting limiting the number of dependent children within the calculation for Council Tax Support to a maximum of two.