Issue - meetings

It was proposed by Councillor Townend, seconded by Councillor Crow-Brown, and Members agreed to approve the Scheme.

Members were reminded that Council approved the 2017-18 Council Tax Support Scheme on 1^st December 2016 and further agreed to receive at a later date, a report in respect of an Exceptional Hardship Scheme. This latter scheme is designed to provide a one-off financial contribution to applicants that can demonstrate exceptional hardship as a result of changes to Council Tax support.

Cabinet and Council had already recognised the inadequate central government funding that had resulted in the need for Thanet District Council, along with councils, to review the Council Tax Support Scheme. Members approved a new scheme that is, jointly, the most generous in Kent.

When put before the Overview and Scrutiny Panel on 26th January 2017, Members posed a number of questions which were responded to. They also made comments of observation and this resulted in some changes to the wording of the proposed scheme as follows:

•  Page 88, penultimate bullet point, after “Exceptional Hardship awards are designed as short-term help to the applicant only” the sentence should continue “… and will only be made for up to one financial year at a time;”

•  Page 89, last bullet point, the addition of the word “reasonable” as follows: “The Customer has not tried all other reasonable means to address the shortfall before making this application;”

•  Page 90, sixth and seventh bullet points, should delete the words “fall to” which clarifies the meaning of each point.

Councillor I. Gregory and Councillor Campbell spoke under Council Procedure Rule 20.1.

Councillor Townend proposed, Councillor Brimm seconded and Members agreed to recommend to Full Council that Council approve the Scheme.

report to follow

Tim Willis, Director of Corporate Resources introduced the item for discussion and made the following points:

• When Council agreed the 2017/18 Council Tax Support Scheme, Members also agreed to receive at a later date, proposals on an Exceptional Hardship Scheme to help mitigate (on a one off basis) those individuals/families most adversely affected by the changes to the Council Tax Support Scheme;
• Changes to the Council Tax Support Scheme were necessitated by the reduced government funding;
• It should be noted that the Council approved the Council Tax Support Scheme which is jointly the most generous in Kent;
• The proposed scheme is to be presented to Cabinet on 31 January and Council in February.

Members then sought further clarifications by asking questions and also made the following observations:

• They requested that the application form be presented to the Panel;
• The application form should be robust but fair and the scheme should be easily accessed by those who deserve support;
• The form was an intrinsic part of the scheme should be looked at by  the Panel;
• Further clarification was required for some of the wording used in the scheme. The scheme should not give too much discretion to the assessor but instead provide objective criteria that can used to ensure fair and consistent assessment of applications;
• The wording for one of the circumstances for awarding to a deserving person which read ‘the customer has not tried all other means to address the shortfall before making this application’ (on page 09 of the agenda pack) should be re-worded to perhaps read ‘the customer has not tried all other reasonable means to address the shortfall before making this application;’
• The wording for one of the criteria (on page 10 of the agenda pack) which read ‘all income received by the applicant, their partner and any member of their household irrespective of whether the income may fall to be disregarded under the Council Tax Support Scheme’ should read ‘all income received by the applicant, their partner and any member of their household irrespective of whether the income may be disregarded under the Council Tax Support Scheme;’
• There was a need to use plain English in the wording of the scheme;
• Was there a need to use random sampling to ensure that all changes of circumstances of those in receipt of the payments had been reported to the council?
• Were there any penalties in the event that someone was found to be defrauding the scheme?
• Will there be a cap on how much a recipient could receive?
• Could an applicant in exceptional hardship pay no council tax at all?

In response Mark Emery, Acting Head of Customer Delivery (EK Services) and Tim Willis provided the following comments:

• The application form does not exist as yet;
• EK Services would be administering the Exceptional Hardship Scheme;
• The Scheme would be administered in a similar theme and spirit as the one currently used to administer the discretionary housing payments scheme which has been operational  ...  view the full minutes text for item 92