Have your say on changes to Council Tax Benefits

• New consultation launched on changes to Council Tax Benefit
  
• Consultation will be open until 14 November
  
• Have your say today!

Council Tax Benefit is the way the Council currently helps people on low incomes to pay their Council Tax bills.

The Government is making major changes to the welfare benefits system, one of which is to abolish the current Council Tax Benefit scheme from April 2013. As an alternative, Councils across the country are required to develop their own scheme. You can find out more about the other changes to welfare reform on our website.

The new Council Tax schemes will receive less funding from Central Government than the existing Council Tax Benefit arrangement. In Central Bedfordshire we expect our funding to be reduced by approximately 14%. In other words, we will have £2.5 million less money to fund support to Council Tax payers next year than we have now.

Central Bedfordshire Council has developed a scheme which will change who will be eligible for a reduction in their council tax and how much they will have to pay. This document includes details of our proposed scheme.

Please give us your views by completing this online survey. Paper copies of the documents are also available from Libraries and Customer Service Centres.

You can find out more information about council tax and the proposed scheme by reading this frequently asked questions factsheet.

For more information about this consultation please contact Karen Aspinall by email to Karen.aspinall@centralbedfordshire.gov.uk or by telephone on 0300 300 6286.

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