17,000 face financial struggle to pay

OLDHAM Council is preparing for half of Oldham’s council-tax benefit claimants not paying their new, higher bills.

Nearly 17,000 households across the borough will be affected by the abolition of full council tax benefit, leaving claimants to find £250 extra a year.

Residents who received 100 per cent discount on their council tax will have to pay up to 25 per cent under the new scheme.

Councillor Abdul Jabbar, cabinet member for finance, urges people to pay or the impact will fall on other council tax payers or force further budget cuts.

He said the 50 per cent non-pay rate was an estimate: “No authority can be certain what the outcome will be; all councils have made an estimate,” he said. “It will be some considerable time before councils can be confident of the actual collection rate.”

Until now, the Government has set the benefit rules and reimbursed councils for the amount paid to claimants.

Now the responsibilty is on individual councils to set rates, though they will receive only 90 per cent of the previous funding.

Oldham Council paid out £22.3 million in council tax benefit last year. Under the new scheme it will be £3 million short.

The borough’s 25 per cent is on paper the second highest in the North-West, but Councillor Jabbar points out that Oldham’s rate-change is its only change to benefit.

“Other authorities have introduced a wider range of changes, such as reducing capital limits or including income previously disregarded in the calculation.

“These will give a much higher percentage rate than it at first seems. To say Oldham’s is the second highest in the North-West may not be the case.”