Council tax rebate

FROM SOUTH OXFORDSHIRE DISTRICT COUNCIL

We thought it would be helpful to provide an update on the £150 ‘rebate’ that the government is providing to help households in council tax bands A-D with their energy bills.

We are about to start making rebate payments to households that pay their council tax by direct debit and we will be sending a letter to all these homes to advise them to keep an eye out for the £150 ‘rebate’ going directly into their bank account.

We can only pay the money to someone’s bank account if they are the person responsible for paying council tax at the property and our checks confirm that their application is valid.

Following checks, we expect to pay up to 68 per cent of households this way and hope to complete these payments by the end of the month.

From the end of April, we will send a separate letter to all remaining households (those not on not on direct debit, or whose bank account can’t be matched to council tax bill payer) asking them to complete an online form to confirm their bank account details.

Anyone who is not able to complete the form online will be able to confirm their details by calling a special customer service team who will be in place just to deal with rebate requests.

To ensure Capita can carry out this work as quickly as possible, we continue to ask people not to contact us to chase the ‘rebate’ payment.

Further information about the council tax ‘rebate’ can be found on the South website and on the government’s updated fact sheet.

Update on the discretionary support scheme

We know that those in council tax band properties E-H who are not eligible for the rebate will be keen to hear what funding will be made available to them via the discretionary support scheme. We will confirm more details about this scheme in the coming weeks, as soon as we have completed the first round of rebate payments.