Council Tax Energy Rebate and Discretionary Payments

On 3 February 2022 the Government announced a one-off Council Tax Energy Rebate of £150 for households in Council Tax bands A to D. It must be your main residence as at 1 April 2022 and you must be liable to pay council tax in order to qualify.

Please note that this “rebate” will be in the form of a payment of £150 per household, paid directly into bank accounts (when possible) in order to help with rising energy bills. 

All payments have now been made and we have paid around 91,000 band A to D households in North Tyneside.

People who pay their council tax by direct debit should have received the £150 payment into their bank accounts automatically between 29 April 2022 and 25 May 2022. Non-direct debit payers who are registered as the liable party for council tax had to apply online and supply us with their bank details in order to receive the payment.

The main scheme had a Government imposed payment deadline date of 30 November 2022. This means that if you did not receive the £150 payment into your bank account, you will now have either received it via a Post Office payout voucher or a letter will have been issued informing you that the £150 payment has been allocated against your council tax account (with a revised bill to follow).  

These discretionary payments were made during the week commencing 17 October 2022. 

The Government has provided the authority with a grant to make awards outside of the £150 payment. The authority has agreed:

For those on Council Tax Support on 1 April 2022, the Authority will award an additional discretionary payment to:

• those in bands A-D, £20.00, to top up their payment from £150.00 to £170.00, and
• those in bands E-H £170.00 so they receive the same as those in bands A-D.
• For those in houses of multiple occupation (HMO’s) who don’t qualify for a standard £150.00 payment a discretionary award may be paid where the occupants are responsible for their own energy bills. We will contact the occupiers direct regarding this support.

Discretionary payments were made in the same way as the standard £150.00 was paid. This will be into bank accounts for the majority of those on Council Tax Support. The remaining qualifying households (for who we do not hold bank account information) received a further Post Office voucher or a top-up £20 payment direct onto their council tax account (with the option of a subsequent refund if appropriate).

The discretionary scheme had a Government imposed payment deadline date of 30 November 2022.

It may be the case that we have been unable to verify the bank details that you supplied with your application. This can happen under various circumstances (ie. recently opened bank accounts or banks that have not signed up to the verification process).

In this situation, we will be using the Post Office Payout Voucher scheme to enable you to receive your £150 payment from any Post Office Branch.

We have sent letters to those that are affected with information on how to claim. These letters were issued between 22 July 2022 and 27 July 2022.

We also ultimately have the option of crediting your council tax account with £150 as a last resort to make sure you get the money that is due to you. 

Payments of the Council Tax Energy Rebate into residents bank accounts who pay council tax by direct debit were concluded in May 2022. The bank account reference that was shown on these transactions was NTC BACS. The payments made were to support all residents in the household. If you have only recently signed up for direct debit, or if the bank account name could not be matched sufficiently with the liable party on our council tax records, then you may have now missed this automatic payment option and you will have received an application letter if appropriate (see below)

From the week beginning 23 May 2022, letters were issued advising you how to make your claim for the Council Tax Energy Rebate. Please be aware of potential scam phone calls that will not be from a representative of the Council, unless of course we are responding to a direct enquiry from yourself.

The deadline for making an online application has now passed.

If you are a qualifier who has not yet made an online application, we will have reviewed our records and we will have looked to make the £150 payment either as a credit on to your council tax account or as a Post Office voucher payment (if, for example, your council tax balance/liability is nil).

You should not therefore have missed out on the payment, even if you have not applied.

Second homes and empty properties will not be given a rebate as part of the Government scheme.

If you are not sure which Council Tax band your property is in, you can check online.

As the effective date for the Council Tax Energy Rebate is 1 April 2022, changes made to the Council Tax band of your home after this date will not be taken into consideration. The exception to this is newly built homes that are awaiting a valuation band. In these circumstances, if the effective date is ultimately 1 April 2022 or before, then a payment could be made.