Member Article

Changes to council tax benefit

Where you receive a discount, an exemption or benefit towards council tax – changes are about to be made that will affect you from 1 April 2013.

Council tax benefits are awarded to over 38,000 households in Newcastle. The government is cutting the amount of money they give to local authorities for council tax benefit by a national average of 10% next year, which will mean around £2.77 million less for Newcastle, but this could be more.

The government has asked all local authorities to design a new scheme for council tax support to help with the cuts. They have said that council can make changes to some of the discounts and exemptions, but not change the amount of the benefit given to pensioners. Therefore, the only changes will be for people who fall between 18 years and state retirement age.

There are still some decisions to be made about how these changes will affect certain groups, an online survey has been created to help with these decisions.

There are also focus groups on changes to the benefit at the City Library on the 7thand 15thAugust 6-8pm.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Natalina Sutherland .