Sandwell MBC - Council Tax Reduction Scheme 2025-26 Consultation

Overview

As we have to every year, Sandwell Council is currently considering whether any changes are needed to the Local Council Tax Reduction Scheme for working age applicants.

No changes are being considered for people of pension age as they are covered by a separate national scheme.

Across the council's area, currently around 29,600 Council Tax payers receive Council Tax Reduction of which 18,400 are of working age.

The gross cost of the scheme is spread across the council (85.7%), the Police and Crime Commissioner (10.6%), and the Fire & Rescue Service (3.7%) in accordance with the proportion of Council Tax which each organisation levies (which is shown in brackets).

Currently, the total cost of the scheme is around £31.7 million with around £19 million supporting working age households.

Due to the council having to make savings, there is a need to reduce the costs of the scheme for working age applicants and the proposed changes will save the council in the region of £1.7 million.

We are legally required to consult on any proposed changes to the scheme and we’re asking you to take part in this consultation to find out what you think about our proposed Council Tax Reduction Scheme, which would start from 1 April 2025.

We want to:

• reduce the overall costs of the scheme to assist the council's finances
• continue to make the scheme easy to understand and access; and
• continue to support households on the lowest incomes as far as possible and still provide a generous Council Tax Reduction scheme compared to other local authorities.

The areas we are consulting on are:

1. Reduce the level of support available to working age cases (Part 1);
2.  Apply a band restriction whereby a limit will be applied when calculating Council Tax Reduction. This will be based on a maximum of Council Tax band  B (Part 2);
3. No longer disregard the first £25 of an applicant’s earnings (Part 3);and
4. No longer disregard carer's allowance when calculating Council Tax Reduction (Part 4).

We do retain the flexibility when we set the final scheme to amend or not include some of these options, although we cannot introduce anything beyond what is included in the consultation.

 Thank you for taking the time to share your views. It should take around 10 minutes to fill in this consultation.

What happens next

The consultation closes at midnight 27th October 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 Council will consider the impact of the scheme annually and consult again if it thinks further changes need to be made.