Proposed changes to our council tax support scheme

Summary of the proposal:

• The way we support people with paying their council tax may be changing for working age adults.
• Our proposed new scheme will provide £30m of council tax support next year to our residents who need it most.
• Eligible pensioners, care leavers (under 25) and disabled residents who are unable to work are not affected by the proposed changes.

Our current council tax support (CTS) scheme was introduced in 2013 when the responsibility of helping people to pay their council tax moved from central government to local authorities. This scheme has remained unchanged since its launch, however, over this time the cost of the scheme has increased from £28.7m to £35.4m meaning it costs us over £6m more since 2013, and this amount continues to grow each year.

Since 2010 the council’s funding from central government has been cut by 81%, that’s £96m less a year. At the same time the demand for many of our services, including the council tax support scheme, have increased dramatically.

We are now, like other local authorities, proposing to update our scheme. We want to make it fairer and easier for people to apply, and to ensure we prioritise the lowest income households in our community, while continuing to protect pensioners, care leavers (under 25) and disabled residents who are unable to work.

What changes are we proposing?

We’re proposing a new scheme where the amount of financial support people receive depends on how much they earn, prioritising those that need it the most.

Our proposal also includes the introduction of a hardship fund to support residents as they move from the current to the new scheme.

Who is not affected?

Eligible pensioners, care leavers (under 25) and disabled residents who are unable to work are not affected by the proposed changes.

Who is affected?

To all other eligible working age residents the proposal may mean a change to the way their CTS is calculated; some would receive less support, and others more.

Have your say

Before we make changes to our council tax support scheme we must, by law, ask for your feedback. We want to make sure we are using the £30m of investment in the best way. This consultation is open to all; people who currently receive council tax support, the voluntary and community sector organisations that provide extra help to people receiving council tax support, and anyone who has an interest in the level of council tax support provided by the council. Please take the survey below.

This consultation closes Thursday 9 December 2021.

Feedback from this consultation will be used to consider the fairness of the proposed scheme and help us prepare the final recommendations which will be taken to cabinet on 24 January 2022 and then full council on 31 January 2022.

If agreed the new scheme would start from April 2022.

If you would like this information in a different format, contact CTSconsultation@croydon.gov.uk.

You said, we did

Thank you to everyone who took part in our consultation survey on the proposed changes to our council tax support scheme. We received 594 responses and you can read more about what people told us in our report to cabinet.

Cabinet have now approved a scheme that has been designed in line with feedback from the consultation. This new scheme will take effect from 1 April 2022 - find out more about it here.