East Staffordshire Borough Council has provided an update on Council Tax Energy Rebates.
We anticipated payments would be issued by the end of April once the relevant software had been released. However, the software needed to issue the payments was not released until late on 19 April and initial testing identified some issues which resulted in the provider issuing a further release of updated software on 25 April. That software is now being installed and our provider is supporting us over the next week so that we can start issuing the payments as soon as possible.
We anticipate that payments will be issued to eligible Direct Debit payers at least within the next 10-14 days (earlier if at all possible). With more than 54,000 Council Tax accounts on our records (30,000 of those being Direct Debit payers) there is a significant amount of testing and checks that need to be done before payments can be issued to eligible Council Tax payers under the scheme. Our officers are working extremely hard to get this process completed as quickly as possible. Councils operate different systems so some other authorities may be in a position to make payments sooner.
Further details regarding the Council Tax Energy Rebate for households in Council Tax bands A to D is available on the Council’s website: Council Tax - Energy Rebate. The Council is also devising a discretionary scheme to provide assistance for people who are not liable to pay Council Tax (e.g. those who live in a house of multiple occupation) or where their sole/main residence is in a property assessed in Bands E to H.