Agenda item

[Report of the Interim Chief Finance Officer. To be introduced by the Cabinet Member for Finance and Health.]Cabinet will be asked to create a new class of beneficiaries under s13(a)(c) of the Local Government Act (1992) and to approve the Care Leavers (Council Tax) Relief Scheme Policy and amendment to current council tax discretionary award policy.

The Cabinet Member for Finance and Health introduced the report which sought approval for the Council to exercise its discretionary powers and to provide, from the 1^st of April 2018, 100% Council tax discount to care leavers that reside in the borough until their 25^th birthday.

This proposal builds on the study by the Children’s’ society which recommends Council’s provide as much support as possible to care leavers who are particularly vulnerable to Council tax debt. This proposal would create a new Council tax class and there would be a 100% discount in line with the Council’s Corporate parenting responsibility.

The Cabinet Member for Children and Families spoke in support of the recommendations and felt that the Cabinet should be proud to adopt this new policy. It was important for the Council to do all it could to help care leavers sustain their future by building their own lives.

RESOLVED

1. That for the purposes of reducing Council tax, the Council should agree to the creation of a new class of Council tax charge payers to be known as ‘Care Leavers’;

2. That the Council exercises its discretionary power to provide 100% Council tax discount to ‘Care Leavers’ that reside in Haringey until their 25^th birthday;

3. To agree the Care Leavers (Council Tax) Relief Scheme policy;

4. To agree that from 1^st April 2018, reduction to care leavers Council tax liability, should be applied in line with the Haringey Care Leavers Relief Scheme policy as set out in Appendix 1 of this report; and

5. To agree to the amendments to the “Policy for the Award of Discretionary Reductions in Council Tax Liability…” attached at Appendix 2.

Reason for Decision

Haringey Council now has responsibility for Council tax benefit following the Government’s decision to transfer responsibility to local authorities in April 2013.

Outside the CTRS, the Council has discretionary powers to reduce Council tax liability in individual cases, under section 13A(1)(c) of the Local Government Finance Act 1992. These powers have been used to create a discretionary Council tax discount policy that allows the Council tax charge for residents facing financial hardship to receive relief. However, this policy is not specific to the needs of care leavers which the CLRS seeks to address.

A report by the Children’s Society shows that care leavers who are looked after by a local authority rather than their parents are amongst the most vulnerable groups in society and are more likely to be behind with Council tax payment.

The Children’s Commissioner for England has written to the Leader of the Council to make the case for exempting care leavers from payment of Council tax as part of the Council’s parenting responsibility and as a means of helping this group of young adults to get the best start in life.

The Council takes its parenting responsibility toward care leavers seriously and, where possible, the Council is prepared to intervene in order to ensure that care leavers are not disadvantaged compared to their peers.

Alternative options considered

The Council could choose to do nothing or chose to support care leavers in other ways and therefore not use its discretionary powers to provide Council tax charge relief to care leavers in the borough. However, the Council as a corporate parent is expected to ensure where possible that care leavers under its care are not disadvantaged compared to their peers.

The Council could have opted to exclude care leavers from other boroughs from the relief scheme and limit the benefit to Haringey care leavers only. However, this would have raised issues of equal treatment of care leavers and also the proposal would have fallen short of the recommendation made by the Children’s Society and the Children’s Commissioner for England.

The scheme has been designed to offer 100% discount to care leavers. Instead, the discount available could have been restricted to 80.2%. However, a partial discount would not completely eradicate the possibility that care leavers will accumulate Council tax debt. Also, the indications are that the cost of collecting the reduced Council tax amount may exceed the residual amount to be collected.