HARD UP Liverpool City Council is to carry on bankrolling the council tax bills of the city’s poorest households for another year.
But it has warned that this will be the final time it can hold out the safety net as George Osbourne’s savage attack on city coffers sees total funds slashed by almost 60 percent.
Around 43,000 households in Liverpool faced having to find up to 20 percent of their total council tax bill this year - rather than 8.5 percent - as a result of the impact of Government cuts to the benefit.
Residents in the cheapest Band A properties would be landed with bills of £215, up from the present £91.
The council says it would have clawed back £3 million per year by going along with the plan, but now a new report is urging that the subsidy scheme be retained for another year.
Mayor Joe Anderson said: “We are proud that we are one of the tiny number of councils who still use our own money to shelter people from the impact of the Government’s reduction in council tax benefit, despite the huge cuts we have already faced.
“People in other parts of the city region are already paying more and of the big cities only much more prosperous Bristol has been doing the same as us
“We have taken a long hard look at this and concluded that it is the right thing to do to continue to provide protection for the most needy for another year.
"This is likely to be the last year that we will be able to shelter in this way as the government seem set on cutting our funding further each year and it is getting harder and harder to prioritise our priorities.
“It is a sign of the agonising and heartbreaking considerations we have to make due to the loss of 58 percent of our budget.”
If the proposal is agreed by the Cabinet at a meeting this Friday (January 8) it will need to be formally confirmed at a full meeting of the council later in the month.
