11 Exceptional Hardship Scheme PDF 103 KB
Additional documents:
Minutes:
It was proposed by Councillor Townend, seconded by Councillor Crow-Brown, and Members agreed to approve the Scheme.
407 Exceptional Hardship Scheme PDF 101 KB
Additional documents:
Minutes:
Members were reminded that Council approved the 2017-18 Council Tax Support Scheme on 1st 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.
92 Exceptional Hardship Scheme PDF 65 KB
report to follow
Additional documents:
Minutes:
Tim Willis, Director of Corporate Resources introduced the item for discussion and made the following points:
Members then sought further clarifications by asking questions and also made the following observations:
In response Mark Emery, Acting Head of Customer Delivery (EK Services) and Tim Willis provided the following comments: