Community Charge (Hansard, 28 January 1991)

§ Mr. John Carlisle
To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what information he has received from Mid-Bedfordshire district council as to the number of those liable for community charge who have not yet received any demand for payment.

§ Mr. Key
No information is collected centrally on the number of community charge demands sent out by local authorities.

§ Mr. Redmond
To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will issue his Department's community charge practice notes to all current members of valuation and community charge tribunals.
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§ Mr. Portillo
Each valuation and community charge tribunal has copies of the Department's practice notes on the community charge, which can be consulted by tribunal members if necessary.

§ Mr. Battle
To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how much it costs to administer the collection of 20 per cent. poll tax payments due from those on income support.

§ Mr. Key
The total cost of collecting the community charge in the English local authorities is budgeted to be £413 million in 1990–91. Information is not available on the costs of administering the collection of community charges from those on income support.

§ Mr. Burns
To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many individuals have qualified for community charge transitional relief in Chelmsford in the current financial year to the latest available date.

§ Mr. Key
Relief grant claim forms from the local authority indicate that 16,500 charge payers in Chelmsford have benefited from transitional relief this financial year.

§ Mr. Burns
To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment (1) how many individuals are liable to pay the community charge in Chelmsford in the current financial year;
(2) how many individuals have not paid any community charge in Chelmsford in the current financial year to the latest available date.

§ Mr. Key
Information reported by the local authority shows 117,000 people to be liable to make a payment in respect of a personal community charge by 31 December 1990; of these 4,000 had not made a payment.

§ Mr. Blunkett
To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will publish a table showing (i) the assumed poll tax he has assigned to each local authority for 1991–92 for the purposes of the community charge reduction scheme and (ii) the actual poll tax levied by each authority in 1990–91.

§ Mr. Portillo
[holding answer 24 January 1991]: I am placing in the Library copies of a table showing the average personal community charge for each English authority in 1990–91 and the community charges which it is proposed should be used for calculating community charge reductions in 1991–92. In most cases the latter charges are derived from an authority's average personal community charge for 1990–91 adjusted to take account of the change in support per adult resulting from the replacement of the safety net and low rateable value areas grant by area protection grant. However, for a number of authorities such a calculation, if applied, would produce a charge less than the figure used as the basis of the calculation of transitional relief this year—the lower of an authority's 1990–91 actual and assumed personal community charges. In these cases, the 1990–91 figure for calculating transitional relief is to be used.
In all cases if the figure derived in the way described above is greater than the personal community charge set by the relevant authority for the financial year beginning on 1 April 1991, we propose that the latter should be used for calculating entitlement to a community charge reduction.