Council Tax Reduction (CTR) is a support scheme that mitigates the impact of Council Tax on people who would struggle to afford it. Council Tax is levied by each local authority to pay for local services. It operates slightly differently across the UK, and a new report from Independent Age focuses on CTR in England.
CTR is sometimes referred to as Council Tax Support and is an additional scheme to Council Tax discounts (for example, the single person discount). In most cases, it can completely remove the cost of a Council Tax bill for an older person on a low income if they are eligible. Independent Age know first-hand what a tremendous impact this can have.
Their new report shines a light on the transformative impact of CTR for those who receive it and makes the case for improving take-up for the estimated 1.65 million people over State Pension age (SPa) who are still missing out on this much-needed support.
Their key findings
• Only 50% of people over SPa in England are receiving the CTR they are entitled to.
• Estimates indicate that people over SPa are missing out on £1.71 billion of CTR across England (£1.97 billion in Great Britain).
• Increasing CTR take-up to 100% among those over SPa in Great Britain would reduce the number of older households in relative poverty by 74,000 – which is around 100,000 individual older people – or 4.6% of pensioner households in relative poverty.
• There is confusion among many older people around the difference between CTR and other Council Tax discounts, potentially reducing the number of people receiving the discount they are entitled to.
• For the local authorities we spoke to, funding pressures have meant that work to increase CTR take-up is a lower priority.
Their key recommendations
• We recommend several UK Government reforms, including providing ring-fenced funding for CTR, overhauling data sharing to enable better passporting, delivering a national take-up strategy, simplifying applications, improving awareness and ensuring CTR is treated as a core component of wider income maximisation.
• With these changes, we simultaneously urge local authorities to adopt best practice CTR take-up strategies, to invest more in income maximisation efforts, and to leverage the Crisis and Resilience Fund to enhance interagency efforts to boost access to CTR and wider social security entitlements
