By Paul Howarth Councils across England face an increasingly complex set of challenges as they seek to manage their council tax reduction (CTR) schemes. Alongside financial pressures and the final stages of Universal Credit migration, local government reorganisation is driving an urgent need for simplification, consistency, and transparency. At the centre of this lies one…
Author: Paul Howarth
Reforming Council Tax Reduction Schemes
The Government didn’t make life easy for local authorities when council tax reduction schemes were introduced in 2013. Local authorities were not given much time to prepare the way, so it was unsurprising that most schemes followed the default regulations and ended up very similar to Council Tax Benefit. Local authorities in England were also…
2023 Budget at Glance
The UK is not expected to enter a technical recession this year, and inflation is predicted to reduce to 2.9% by the end of 2023, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR). Other key points of the 2023 budget include the introduction of 15 hours of free childcare for parents working 16 hours a…