Find out how to comment on our Council Tax Support review
Council Tax Support
We run a scheme that provides help to people with the cost of their Council Tax bill if they're on a low income. This scheme is called local Council Tax Support.
Our Council Tax Support scheme only applies to working age people. There is a national Council Tax Support scheme for people who are pension age, and the rules are decided by central government.
Every year our Council Tax Support scheme is reviewed. We seek views from all local residents on the proposals for the coming year, whether or not you receive Council Tax Support. You can comment on these proposals using the survey at the bottom of this page.
If you're pension age you're not directly affected by these proposals, but we would still welcome your views.
The current scheme
We first introduced a Council Tax Support scheme in April 2013 and have made updates since then. Our Council Tax Support scheme is now the same for all working age people and the principles of the current scheme are:
- Working age people have their CTS calculated based on 100% of their weekly CTS bill, so can receive up to 100% support
- A weekly deduction is made for each non-dependent in the household (for example grown up children) depending on their income
- The maximum amount of Capital (money, savings, shares, investments etc) allowed is £16,000
- A ‘tariff’ income is assumed for capital between £6,000 and £16,000 of £1 for every £250 above £6,000
- Excess income is deducted from the CTS award at a rate of 20p for each £1 over the allowed amount
- The following earnings are ignored when working out the amount of Council Tax Support:
- £15 for a Single Person
- £20 for a Couple
- £30 for a person who is disabled or a carer
- £35 for lone parents
- The claim start date can be backdated for three months if there is good cause to do so
The proposed changes for working age people for 2027/2028
We are not proposing any major updates to the Council Tax Support scheme for 2027/2028.
We will continue to make changes to our scheme to reflect wider changes to benefits introduced by the government, including removal of the two child benefit cap and ignoring payments from certain government compensation schemes.
We are proposing to update the wording of some of the rules of our scheme to make it clearer how we will treat certain other welfare benefits when working out how much CTS we will award.
Consultation questionnaire
The consultation invites your views on our proposals. Comments will gathered from the consultation and reported to Members before the final Council Tax Support scheme is agreed.
The questionnaire can be found at the link below.
View consultation questionnaire
This consultation runs until 7 September 2026.