Tax rebate ‘shambles’ as councils fail to pass on £150

TOWN halls are yet to pay households their promised £150 council tax rebate, despite receiving £28 million in funding to help administer the payments.

Taxpayers in several councils have yet to receive a payout, despite many residents needing the money to help them through the cost of living crisis.

Meanwhile, Swale council, in Kent, has mistakenly taken £150 from some residents’ accounts, rather than paying them the sum.

Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor, promised the rebate at the start of February as a way to tackle rising energy bills. Councils have been given £28million in taxpayer money to cover “burden costs” such as hiring staff and updating software to make the payments, the Department for Housing, Communities and Levelling Up said yesterday.

Residents in the London borough of Lambeth have complained they are still waiting for their money despite the council receiving more than £170,000 to help make the payouts. The authority was approached for comment.

Swale council, which received £75,000 to help cover the cost of the rebates, said a “processing error” meant some accounts were debited instead of credited. A spokesman apologised and said the mistake would be rectified.

Residents in Brighton and Hove, and Bath and North East Somerset also said that the money had yet to arrive.

Danielle Boxhall of the Taxpayers’ Alliance lobby group said the scheme had been “a complete shambles”, saying taxpayers deserved better.

Brighton and Hove council said it had started making some payments and more would follow soon, while a spokesman for Bath and North East Somerset council said it was “working as quickly as possible” on the payouts.

A spokesman for the Local Government Association said many households had already received their grants.