270,000 poorest households face £80 council tax hike

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More than 270,000 of the poorest households in England face council tax hikes of £80 a year, a survey of local authorities has revealed.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation found that from April another 48 local authorities are reducing protection for vulnerable residents.

Ministers cut funding for the means-tested benefit by £500m, around 10% of the total, last April.  £100m in subsidies given to councils to afford  some protection to the poor has now also been cut.

These and other cuts to local authority budgets will leave a quarter of a million working-age households paying £176 annually, an extra of £78 a year on average. £176.

Councils are now forced to choose between charging council tax to the working-age poor or cutting more local services on top of the cuts of 40% being made already by the coalition.

Some councils have simply decided they can no longer afford to protect the poor. In Chiltern council this means 2,500 of the poorest households, which had been spared the council tax, will now face an average bill of £261.

With council tax collection a legal requirement, many of the poorest have fallen into arrears. Data obtained by the Guardian last year showed that government cuts to council tax benefits had left 670,000 facing bailiffs in the first six months of 2013.

Peter Kenway of the New Policy Institute, which conducted the research, said:

“‘The data published today suggests that around a quarter of local authorities are amending their council tax support schemes for 2014-15. In almost all cases these changes will adversely affect working-age council tax support recipients. Those recipients affected will see their support further reduced by £78 on average per annum, more than doubling the average amount of council tax payable.

“Most of those amending their schemes were in receipt of the transitional grant funding. As this grant was available for one year only, many local authorities have decided to pass on more of the cut to vulnerable residents in order to make up the funding shortfall.”

The Local Government Association warned of worse to come. It pointed out that if council tax support funding is reduced in line with cuts to overall funding, then the total cut to council tax support funding between 2013-14 and 2015-16 would amount to 28%, or £1bn.

Hilary Benn, Labour’s local government spokesman, said:

“Local government has faced the deepest cuts to any part of the public sector. We know as well that the poorest councils are facing the biggest reductions in their spending power.

“This new poll tax – the responsibility for which lies squarely at David Cameron and Eric Pickles’s doorstep – hits the poorest hardest, forcing up council tax bills for those least able to pay them.”

The Haze says:

This is a despicable indicator that yet again shows just how aloof, callous and stupid this coalition government has become.

What on earth are people without the funds to pay these taxes to do? Doubtless this will drive more people to food banks and a quiet desperation that characterises ordinary life for too many in the UK these days.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation is a national treasure and its research into poverty and inequality in the UK is invaluable, but who will speak up for the powerless and voiceless once the gagging law comes into effect? Clearly we are headed back to Victorian levels of poverty but now with attendant draconian legislation preventing free speech and protest.

We at The Haze have many misgivings about New (Blue) Labour but we really must turf out this wicked coalition at the next election.