Earlier this year the Chancellor announced council tax rebates would be paid directly to anyone who lived in Band A to D properties to help with the squeeze on living standards
Thousands of Halton households face missing out on a £150 ($183.47) cash boost to help with cost of living if they do not provide their bank details by the end of the month.
Earlier this year the Chancellor announced council tax rebates would be paid directly to anyone who lived in Band A to D properties to help with the squeeze on living standards.
Councils are responsible for administering the rebate and have put the money directly into the bank accounts of anyone who pays council tax by direct debit, with those that don’t being urged to provide their bank details.
If they have not done so by the end of the month, the £150 ($183.47) will be taken off their council tax bill instead.
In a meeting of Halton’s ruling executive board Thursday, operational director for finance Ed Dawson told members that so far, the money had been paid to 45,700 households which he said was 88% of those eligible. But he said they still did not have bank details for three-and-a-half thousand households, and that they had been sent a reminder.
He also said there had been hold-ups due to people’s details having to be put through Government software to ensure their records matched. He told the meeting: We’ve written to one-and-a-half thousand (households) this week where they’ve given us their bank details but we have to put it through the online portal called Spotlight which checks their bank details.
Sometimes it’s very simple things where their surname is spelt slightly differently on their bank account than it is on their council tax. In such instances, the council had to ask for proof – such as a bank statement – but that this was creating additional work for his team who had to input information manually, he said.
One of the issues is that it has distracted from council tax collection, and we are slightly worried that our collection rates will be down for a couple of months because the team are trying to get this money out as fast as possible. An additional discretionary fund for those that live in Bands E-H has also been set up and the process was now ongoing to see who would receive this support, he told the board.