The coalition government has slashed £5.5m from the Council Tax Benefit (CTB) grant to Durham County Council which means that the council must now find the money to protect CTB claimants from serious financial hardship. This comes on top of unprecedented cuts to local authority budgets amounting to about £190m before 2017.
This month the council is to launch a consultation exercise with claimant groups and the public on how best to achieve this, with the main options focused on reducing CT discounts for empty and second homes. This should have the added benefit of bringing unused properties in the private rented sector back into occupation (blogs elsewhere on this site illustrate the problems that empty properties present in our communities. See 2 & 20 August).
If these measures are adopted it is also expected that parish and town councils will be protected from any negative effects of the government's CTB cuts to local authorities.
Full details of the consultation exercise and options will follow on this site in due course but please let me know in the meantime if you have any concerns or comments in relation to this issue.