CTR schemes reduce the amount of Council Tax that low income households have to pay to the council.
From 2013 the government abolished the national Council Tax Benefit scheme (CTB) and replaced it with local schemes. Councils had the freedom to design their own schemes for working-age households, although the rules for pensioners remained the same.
CTB mirrors Housing Benefit (HB) in a number of its calculation rules. Where legislative changes to HB have been made since the abolition of CTB these changes have also been carried forward to our local CTR scheme, and we intend for this to continue.
With the exception of pensioners who are protected by law, Dudley’s CTR scheme currently requires everyone to pay a minimum of 22% towards their Council Tax.
Like all councils, Dudley continues to face significant financial challenges and therefore needs to decide whether to increase its Council Tax income by changing its CTR scheme for 2018/19.
The council currently grants approximately £18.6 million in CTR and collects around £126 million in Council Tax. The proposals included in this consultation could increase income by up to £0.1m once amounts paid over to Fire and Police and allowances for non-collection are taken into account.
Many councils have CTR schemes that protect young people who have previously been in care (care leavers). We want your views on doing this in Dudley.
This consultation is seeking views on:
- whether we increase the cut in CTR from 22% to 23%
- introduce a new protected group for care leavers aged 18 to 24, resulting in some care leavers under the age of 25 having their Council Tax reduced to zero.
The following table shows the minimum annual Council Tax that could be payable*. The figures are based on this year's Council Tax rate.
For households already paying some Council Tax or where there is only one adult the increase will be less than quoted.
* Except for pensioners and potentially care leavers.
