Council Tax reduction in Scotland: 2018-2019

Changes in Council Tax and CTR changes since 1^st April 2017.

Three changes came into effect on 1^st April 2017:

• The Council Tax (CT) freeze in place between 2008-09 and 2016-17 ended and the 2017-18 and 2018-19 Local Government Finance settlements included an agreement between the Scottish Government and local government for locally determined Council Tax increases to be capped at 3%. (See Chart 1 below)

• The child element in the calculation of the Applicable Amount (see Figure 2) was increased from £66.90 per week to £83.63 per child.
• CTR recipients in receipt of below median income in CT Bands E to H were eligible to receive CTR to the value of the increase in CT due to the increase in multipliers to be paid by these dwellings relative to the Band D CT rate.

The figures reported in this publication should be viewed in the light of these changes. Chart 1 below shows the effects on CTR of:

• The end of the CT freeze which can be seen with the increase of CTR income forgone in April 2017 and April 2018;
• The introduction of Universal Credit (UC) the effects of which are described in Chart 9 in section 3.1.

Chart 1: CTR recipients and Income Forgone in Scotland, April 2013 to March 2019