Council Tax Reduction Scheme 2026 to 2027 consultation

What council tax is

Council tax is a local tax set and collected by the council. The amount you pay is based on the value of your property as of April 1991.

The tax is used to fund local public services such as waste collection, social services, environmental health and education.

In Bristol, around 15% of the money is collected on behalf of Avon Fire Authority and the Police and Crime Commissioner for Avon and Somerset.

What the Council Tax Reduction Scheme is

Council Tax Reduction (CTR) is a discount that helps households on low incomes with a discount of up to 100% off their council tax bill.

CTR Scheme review

We review the CTR scheme every financial year as part of our budget setting process.

We can make changes to the scheme for people who are working-age. Pensioners are protected from changes under government rules.

Most people, who are working-age and claim CTR, also claim Universal Credit. This will increase as more people are moved to Universal Credit.

Universal Credit is worked out based on a household’s income each month. CTR is means tested and household income each month is also used to work out the discount a household is entitled to. This means, many households CTR scheme discount and how much council tax they have to pay can differ month to month.

What we’re proposing

We want to change the scheme so that if a change in income results in a change of less than £13 a month (£3 a week) in CTR, we won’t make any adjustments to the CTR calculation and we won’t issue a new council tax bill.

This is equivalent to a change in household income of £65 a month (£15 a week).

If there are further changes in income which would result in a change to CTR of more than £13 a month (£3 a week), the CTR calculation will then be adjusted and a new council tax bill issued.

pdf Draft Council Tax Reduction scheme 2026 to 2027(711 KB)

This proposed change to the CTR scheme would be effective from 1 April 2026.

There are currently no plans to reduce the level of support available to citizens under the scheme.

Households can request further reductions in council tax liability under Section 13A(1)(c) of the Local Government Finance Act 1992 (as amended).  You can view our current policy on our website at: Bristol.gov.uk/council-tax-discretionary-relief-policy

This is separate to the CTR scheme and is not affected by this proposal.

We have drafted scenarios in the document below to show how the introduction of income tolerances would affect applicants’ entitlement to Council Tax Reduction (CTR) in practice, when compared to the current scheme.

pdf Draft Tolerances Illustrative Scenarios(69 KB)

Why we’re proposing this change

Based on current levels, we estimate the number of recalculations that would result in a small change to CTR will reduce by 25%.

This change would make budgeting easier for households who receive CTR by making their CTR discount and the amount of council tax they have to pay a more stable amount.

Households with varying income will receive fewer CTR bills and the change will make running the CTR scheme more efficient as we process fewer changes.