Families to face increase in bills as Council Tax Benefit is cut

The Government will end the scheme on 31st March - cutting Bassetlaw Council’s benefit grant by £1m.

This means working age claimants who are entitled to 100 per cent rebate on their Council Tax will have to pay an average of £7 a month .

Only pensioners and severely disabled people will be exempt from the changes.

Coun Sylvia May, cabinet member for revenues, customer and support services, said the decision had been taken lightly.

“These changes have been enforced on us by the Government and we have had to work very hard over the past 18 months to come up with a solution,” she said.

“Some authorities are increasing their Council Tax bills by up to 23 per cent, but we have capped our discount at 92 per cent which means Bassetlaw residents will face a bill of around 8 per cent.”

She added: “We stand by our commitment to getting people out of poverty and are proud of our anti-poverty strategy.”

“We recognise that these changes will hit some families very hard and we will be setting up a hardshiop fund to help those who won’t be able to manage to pay.”

For more on this story, see this week’s Worksop Guardian - out on Friday 15th February.