Durham County Council proposes capping council tax support
Richard Lane, the charity's chief client office, said: "StepChange has called for the government to increase funding for council tax support to ensure councils can continue to offer residents with the lowest incomes 100% reductions. "Ultimately, unaffordable council tax bills lead to counter-productive debt collection and enforcement that harms the worst off and leads to higher health and social costs linked to problem debt."
Council tax options
The council said it was considering holding a consultation on four possible options for the CTRS scheme.The first would allow residents to apply for a discount of up to 100% off their bills, depending on their income.The remaining options would require residents to pay a minimum of 10%, 20% or 25% of their full bill.The county council said it was required to save £45m by 2028-29 to balance its books and CTRS currently costs more than £60m a year. It estimated the proposed change would save between £3.8m and £10.35m each year.
The current system also requires residents' bills to be recalculated every time a change is made to their Universal Credit (UC) claim.The council said last year the average UC claimant received 11 council tax bills, which cost the council £175,000 in printing and postage.
Reform UK recently took control of the authority and promised to carry out a Elon Musk-style review into "wasteful spending".Lyons said the county has "one of the most generous council tax support schemes in the country"."The changes to CTRS we are looking to consult on, would ensure we can continue to provide this much-need support, while taking into account the increasing financial pressure local councils are under," she said. "None of the potential changes would impact on pension-age households."If the council's cabinet approves the consultation, it will be carried out between 16 July and 23 September.
Follow BBC North East on X, Facebook, Nextdoor and Instagram.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
25 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Now SNP back Westminster plans to send foreign prisoners back to their home countries
SNP ministers have admitted they support sending foreign criminals back to their home countries to ease the overcrowding crisis in Scotland's prisons. A 'law enforcement' paper drafted by the Scottish Government states that immigrants languishing behind bars are contributing to the 'unprecedented pressure' on jails. Latest Scottish Prison Service (SPS) figures, show that 679 inmates held in Scottish jails are foreign-born out of a total of 8,145. At the same time, prison bosses have expressed serious concern that a spike in overall prisoner numbers may spark riots. Already, Justice Secretary Angela Constance has authorised the early release of almost 500 inmates serving shorter sentences to free up space. Now, the Scottish Government has said it backs the expansion of so-called prisoner transfer agreements (PTA), which see criminals sent back home to serve their sentences. The deals have already been signed with Albania and Poland by the former Tory and the current Labour government respectively. A new paper released by the Scottish Government states: 'The government supports the UK Government's work to agree prisoner transfer agreements with certain EU member states but believes that a more holistic approach would deliver greater results. 'In particular, securing an EU-wide Prisoner Transfer Agreement which allows for more streamlined procedures for the transfer of prisoners should be a priority for any discussion around improving UK-EU cooperation.' PTAs with EU member states allow criminals to be automatically repatriated if they meet certain criteria, such as length of sentence. In return for taking the offender back, the UK pays the prisoner's country of origin to accommodate them, which costs far less than holding them in British jails. It has been hailed as an effective way to free up space in prisons while saving millions of pounds. Last night Scottish Conservative justice spokesman Liam Kerr welcomed the SNP's position. He said: 'At last. It's a relief to see this soft-touch SNP government finally adopt a common-sense Scottish Conservative proposal to tackle Scotland's prisons population crisis.' The Scottish Government document sets out that 'leaving the EU meant that the UK left the world's most highly developed and sophisticated ecosystem for law enforcement and criminal justice co-operation', and that 'Brexit made the UK and Scotland less safe'. One particular concern highlighted by civil servants was that leaving the EU had made it harder to send sentenced criminals back to their own country. They said the UK now relies on a 1980s convention, which 'has created a number of additional barriers to prisoner transfers'. The report reads: 'These additional barriers have contributed to the unprecedented pressure on Scotland's prison system and broader public services.' The SNP has already tried to ease pressure on crammed jails by releasing some inmates early. The Scottish Conservatives have consistently called on the Scottish Government to expedite the deportation of foreign criminals to free up prison space. Leader Russell Findlay said ministers could use a discretionary power to release some offenders up to 180 days early to facilitate their removal by the UK Home Office. The UK Government is reforming deportation and removal rules which will make it easier to remove foreign criminals committing crimes in the UK. UK Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood has said foreign criminals should expect to be deported and said last month that human rights law should not prevent foreign criminals from being removed. A spokesman for the Scottish Government said: 'The government supports increased co-operation with the EU and an EU-wide prisoner transfer agreement as we have pointed out that one of the harms of Brexit is that important matters such as prisoner transfer have been made more difficult.'
The Independent
38 minutes ago
- The Independent
Rachel Reeves should be as open as possible about tax rises
It has been clear for months that taxes were likely to rise in the Budget this autumn. Rachel Reeves left herself so little margin for error in last year's Budget that any bad fiscal news would mean that she would have to come back for more. Almost from the moment the chancellor sat down after delivering last year's speech, the bad fiscal news has come thick and fast. She sought to stay on track in March by announcing savings in welfare spending, but those have now been blocked by her own MPs. Before that, the prime minister announced a U-turn on means-testing the winter fuel payment, restoring it to most pensioners. Meanwhile, the global economic outlook has worsened and tax revenues have fallen behind the forecast. The question now is not whether she will have to raise taxes, but whether she can do so without breaking Labour's manifesto promises not to raise any of the taxes that produce the bulk of the government's revenue: income tax, national insurance and VAT. Jim O'Neill, the former Conservative minister who advised Ms Reeves in opposition, tells The Independent today that, 'without changing some of the big taxes', the chancellor cannot make her sums add up. 'The past few days should force government to truly prioritise,' he says, 'and, crucially, recognise it can't deliver on all three of its fiscal rules, growth mission and manifesto tax commitments. Something has to give.' The Independent 's view is that we are not quite at that point yet. It may still be possible for Ms Reeves to raise the sums of money required without breaking into the 'big three' taxes – or even into the fourth, corporation tax, which Labour has also promised not to raise. But any prudent chancellor needs to be prepared for more news on the downside. She needs to take the British people into her confidence and explain that, painful as last year's Budget was, it may be necessary to take further painful decisions this year. If she does have to break manifesto promises – as opposed to merely bending them with sophistry about the incidence of taxation on 'working people' with her increase in employers' national insurance contributions – she needs to persuade people that the alternatives are worse. She needs to explain that she cannot simply 'relax the fiscal rules' and borrow more, as some of the voices from her own party seem to imagine. She did this rather well at a conference of CEOs last month: 'Fine, we can change the fiscal rules to borrow more. What would happen? Gilt yields would go up more, so the cost of servicing the whole stock of debts goes up. The fiscal rules aren't a construct that we've pulled out of thin air, they're to meet the real constraints that exist – that if we want to borrow somebody has to be willing to buy those bonds.' But she, the prime minister and whoever is the minister for the morning news round need to make this argument repeatedly. Then she – and they – need to explain why it is so hard to cut public spending. Labour MPs may have been guilty of wishful thinking about the consequences, but they were not wrong to block the rushed and crude cuts to personal independence payments that Ms Reeves wanted. It has been reported that the chancellor, rather sulkily, wants the Labour rebels to take the blame for the tax rises that will follow: it would be better if she could set out a better path to welfare reform that might end up saving money rather than starting from the demand for cuts. There are still many options for tax rises that do not touch manifesto promises. Ms Reeves could perhaps explain to some of her ill-informed backbench colleagues why a wealth tax is a bad idea that has been abandoned in every country that has tried it. She could go on to explain that there are other ideas that could achieve the same objective. Angela Rayner, the deputy prime minister, helpfully set out a few small-ticket items in her memo in March. Beyond that, the freeze in income tax thresholds could be extended. Tax reliefs for pensions remain an unjustified benefit for the better-off. A mansion tax on properties worth more than £2m is long overdue. Openness and transparency have never been the watchwords of the Treasury in tax policy. Chancellors have tended to hoard their power to surprise people with the big decisions at Budgets. But this chancellor and this government are in an unusually difficult situation. Ms Reeves needs to explain the trade-offs behind the difficult decisions that she is about to make if she wants people to support them.
BBC News
an hour ago
- BBC News
Urgent action urged over Shropshire Council's finances
Urgent management intervention is needed to "secure corrections" to help Shropshire Council's "unacceptable" finances, a senior officer has director James Walton predicted an overspend of £13.174m for the end of Walton added that the current savings projection for this financial year, including savings brought forward from the previous year, is £31.438m - about 53% of the total amount to be delivered. The report has gone to the council's cabinet ahead of its meeting on Wednesday and members are warned that, if no more action is taken, the council's unearmarked reserves would be only £600,000. But Mr Walton said the central budget forecast has improved slightly."This change is partly due to better information providing a more robust, if still exceptionally early, view of the financial position, particularly around potential savings delivery," he executive director said the predicted overspend limited the council's ability to cope with unforeseen financial stated: "This is not acceptable or sustainable and requires urgent management intervention in all portfolio areas to secure corrections."Mr Walton said, while it was inevitable not all savings could be delivered exactly to the value planned, there were several areas "where further work to improve the forecast can be progressed".The cabinet was recommended to formally acknowledge that the current information indicated the need for urgent action. This news was gathered by the Local Democracy Reporting Service which covers councils and other public service organisations. Follow BBC Shropshire on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.
