Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Council Tax Benefit is being abolished. What could that mean for local residents?
I was unable to go to the Area Forum last night when HOL member Seema Chandwani gave a presentation about the changes to Council Tax Benefit after April 1 2013.
She has very kindly sent me her presentation for publication. Below it you will find a link to the current consultation being run by Haringey Council on this.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Background To Council Tax Benefit:
- About 36,000 people in Haringey get Council Tax Benefit (CTB), of which about 25,000 get their full Council Tax Paid for.
- The people who get CTB are those on low or no income.
- The Government are now telling every council that they will no longer pay for the CTB. Instead they are giving the money to local councils to make the decision who will get a 'reduction'.
- However they won't be giving the full amount of what they had been giving, instead its 90% of what they used to have. So this means that everyone who did receive the benefit would have to pay at least 10% (could be 20%) of their Council Tax Bill.
- This is similar to the Poll Tax of the 1990s.
Problem:
- The Government have said that that pensioners should still receive 100% off their Council Tax but that's got to come out of the money they give councils. i.e. they are not saying they will give 100% of the money for pensioners, its a 90% cut for the whole amount
- So the remaining people in the pot will have to pay for that, so those left will be paying between 18-20%
Confused? Its ok, its taken over 200 people to explain this to me!!
- To explain this another way, if 10 people used to get £100 each (or £1000 in total for the 10 of them), the Government are now only giving £90 each (or £900 in total), so then everyone has to find their own £10. But 5 of the 10 people are pensioners, and the Government is saying out of the £900, the 5 pensioners should get the full £100 only leaving £400 for the remaining 5. Which means the remaining 5 people need to give another £10 from their £90 to the pensioners, so they will now only have £80 and would need to find £20 each instead of £10. So the cut to the pot is 10% (£100 out of £1000) but some people will lose 20% (£20 out of £100) to pay for the pensioners.
Next Problem:
- We then move onto the next problem, out of the 5 remaining people, some would not be able to raise the £20. These are people who are disabled, have mental health issues, on low incomes, or are not in work. They will have to find the £20 out of their benefits, some of which could be being cut anyway.
- The council could decide that it will not let certain groups of people pay anything, for example those with disabilities. But then that means others will have to cover their 10% like they did with the pensioners and pay even more.
- This also means that Haringey might protect those with disabilities, but Enfield might choose those with kids or Camden those who are not working. It is then a postcode lottery and depending on where you live will determine what sort of help you are getting
Actual Figures:
The figures used above are just made up to explain really basically what is going on
- In Haringey, we are looking at 36,000 people being affected (not 10 people), of which 25,000 currently get the 100%
- Based on someone in a Band D property, if they get charged 20% that is £5.73 a week they would have to find for Council Tax
- This is a blanket estimate and not the case if the council protect certain vulnerable groups over others.
- The Council has lost £5.7m from this reduction for next year alone.
Other issues:
- This amount doesn't change, so if more people require a reduction in their bill during the year or in later years, the council will need to find the money for their reduction.
- This could mean more services cut to make up the shortfall, or that everyone including those not on CTB now or getting any reduction will see a rise in their council tax.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Council are running a consultation on the Council Tax Benefit changes. To take part go to http://www.haringey.gov.uk/www.haringey.gov.uk/benefits-reduction
Tags for Forum Posts: council tax benefit
- Attachments:
-
-
CTB appendix.pdf, 862 KB
-
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by matt on
-
Went through the 'consultation' booklet that dropped through our door this week. As I understand it there's a 20% rise in Council Tax for all except pensioners. Those on full benefit will have to pay something somehow. Any costs of additonal claimants from next April will have to be met by Haringey Council funds (ie. no extra monies from the govt). Obviously this lack of funding from central govt will impact upon delivering other services locally. This is the beginning of the harsher cuts talked about since this coalition came into power. The impact is likely to be significant.
-
Permalink Reply by Old-Age-Emporium(OAE) on
-
Thanks Liz. Seema gave a good presentation last night but, constrained by time, at a rate of knots. Good to have the script. These particular cuts won't affect me directly but there are many who'll feel the pinch. A hard rain gonna fall.
-
-
Thanks Liz - I filled in the consultation
-
Permalink Reply by Seema Chandwani on
-
Awww Fankoooo!! Why didnt you say hello...?
I knew I would be constrained by time, the agenda for the HMOs had already been agreed from the previous area forum. However, last night it was agreed a special meeting just on this will be called for St Anns/Harringay in November.
Like you, this also doesnt affect me 'directly', however it does ultimately. As Matt said, the impact is bound to be significant, the council are stating a shortfall of £5.7m for this year alone, thats £5.7m worth of services and that could be things I use or things I benefit from. Raising the council tax for everyone else is also an option!!
In regards to the 'desperate situation' people who need to find an average of £100 pw once all of the benefit cuts take affect, then those people will have to find ways to 'make' that money. Liz is going to upload the table I distirbuted yesterday which shows the £100pw av I am referring to.
It worries me how desperate people will become, what sort of forces will come into play whether that be a growth in money shops, pawnbrokers, betting shops to more horrible things like muggings, bulgary, drugs and prostitution.
This will have a knock on effect on everyone!
-
-
LOOOOOOOOOOL, I just woke the neighbours baby laughing at this.... What do u fudging mean, you horrible boogieman :(
Im disappointed you werent at the meeting Little Willy, would've been nice to give you a cuddle and pinch your cheeks you cutieeeee!!
Anyway, yes I agree that raising council tax will make the problem worse, but I actually can't see what other options there is. Your thoughts on solutions (party politics aside)?
-
-
:) Chandwani Swearbox you know loooool! Pish off you joker! - It definately cant be covered by the 'Little Willy Smile Box' ;) xXx
To take your points 1 by 1:
a). Yes the council does appear to be running a deficit, but the borough has people with higher needs than some boroughs and if you compare like for like boroughs with similar demographics you wouldn't see much disparity.
b). The welfare benefit changes, as you are hopefully aware, is a central government change and they have been specific in this policy (as well as other policies) to be targetting the most vulnerable. Whether this is intentional is another debate, however it is not rocket science when the agenda to cut public services is clear and the biggest users of public services are the poor, old and vulnerable.
c). Your suggestions to merge services is a valid one, however is a short term fix. The council has already lost 795 staff, and these people are now needing to enter a huge pool of people already looking for jobs. In Haringey, where a good percentage of Haringey Council staff reside, the job rate is 26 to every 1 vacancy. By making people unemployed does reduce a salary bill, but increases a welfare bill and lowers income from tax revenue.
It will also find potentially £5m for this year, but this is not a one off situation, what are we planning to sell or merge next year for the £5.7m or the year after?
That said, I am not in charge of the Council finances and I am sure you have informed Cllr Joe Goldberg of your suggestions?
d). To make the £5.7m clear, that is a £5.7m shortfall just on loss of tax income, that does not include the £86m already cut by Central Government of which about £25m is required for this year.
In addition, it is not calculating impact of additional costs to the council that these welfare changes are creating. Firstly, there is the obvious administration costs of now directly dealing with a Council Tax 'reduction scheme', but then there is the impact on people, higher social needs, rise in the likilehood of crime, homelessness, child protection, child welfare, educational attainment and other indicators that will be impacted upon and the council will be picking up this bill.
e). No they did not pay me, I did it because I wanted to, I understand your 'mate Dave' calls it 'Big Society'. :)
f). As someone who has known Cllr Diakides for most of my life, I can assume that he is more than happy to gift you a set of Kebab Sticks if you can't find any!
Look forward to more debate, especially as this is just the beginning of wider issues the borough will be facing and we are both residents who in our own way, care.
Sx
© 2024 Created by Hugh.
Powered by
