Council leaders look set to maintain the current levels of council tax support for working-aged people despite the challenging economic climate.
Council leaders have said they are planning to maintain the current levels of council tax support for working-aged people despite the challenging economic climate.
Members of South Holland District Council’s cabinet recommended that the district council offers a maximum level of support for working-aged claimants of up to 85 per cent for hard-up households with families and 75 per cent for all other struggling households.
The discussion did not look at the separate help already offered to pensioners.
The authority’s Cabinet was told it had held a public consultation on the council tax support scheme.
Coun Nick Worth said: “The consultation ran between September 23 and November 8 of this year.
“Of the 29 responses received, 61 per cent agreed that the council should retain the current level of support.
“Whilst 29 per cent did not agree, views were divided. Some were in favour of maintaining increased levels of support, others saw the system as unfair and too generous.”
But Coun Paul Barnes said he was concerned by the low response rate to the district council’s consultation – with only 29 people taking part.
He added: “We need to look to see if we can encourage more responses to our survey.”
Coun Worth acknowledged that the response rate was low but said the district council had tried its best to give residents an opportunity to have a say.
He added: “It’s always been a notoriously difficult area to get people to respond and a lot of people don’t understand it.
“I think we put it in plain English as we possibly could but, as you say, it’s always an incredibly difficult one to engage.
“We tried putting it out to pretty much every single media outlet that we could do.”
In Boston, the level of support looks set to be cut in a bid to save money.
South Holland councillors said that despite the economically challenging climate, it “recognised the impact that a reduction in the scheme would have” on working-aged households.
It added that maintaining the same levels of council tax support would ensure that people have “stability”.
The current council tax support scheme for working-aged people cost £2,471,928 this financial year, with the district council paying £291,936 of the costs.
The recommendation will now be considered at a full council meeting at a later date.
