Review into local council tax support - Citizens Advice response

In December 2015 the Government announced that former Member of Parliament Eric Ollerenshaw OBE was to chair an independent review of local council tax support schemes.

Citizens Advice sees first hand how clients are affected by the implementation and delivery of local welfare schemes such as council tax support and we recognise the issues that local authorities face.  

We believe that local delivery of welfare can provide a more innovative, flexible and integrated approach in areas of welfare provision where centrally-administered policy has struggled. However, while there are examples of better practice, local council tax support schemes do not yet appear to be an effective form of local welfare delivery.

Citizens Advice's response to the Review into local council tax support [ 190 kb] sets out some of the challenges we are seeing on local welfare delivery and examples of good practice to help mitigate problems or innovate in this area, and the principles by which these schemes could be improved, and provide recommendations for future development.

Our response reflects evidence gathered from across the service and builds upon our work to inform welfare policy debates.