Communities and Local Government Committee - Eighth Report

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Here you can browse the report together with the Proceedings of the Committee. The published report was ordered by the House of Commons to be printed 25 July 2007.

Contents

Terms of Reference

Summary

1  Introduction

The national policy context

Our inquiry

2  Counciltax benefit eligibility and entitlements

Council tax benefit and poverty

Council tax benefit and making work pay

Aligning council tax benefit thresholds

The treatment of savings

Saving limits

The use of notional income from savings

Age differentials

3  Counciltax benefit take-up

Increasing take-up

Lack of awareness and inertia

Reducing complexity

Stigma

Rebate

Policy focus on pensioner take up

The role of the Pension Service

Working age households

Data-sharing and automatic assessment

Automatic entitlement approach

Government performance and incentives in raising take up

Local action on take up

Measuring local authorities' performance

Financial support and incentives for local authorities

4  Conclusions

Conclusions and recommendations

Formal minutes

Witnesses

List of written evidence

List of Reports from the Committee during the current Parliament

ORAL AND WRITTEN EVIDENCE - HC 718-II

18 June 2007
Written Evidence

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Prepared 6 August 2007