Advice for carers after council benefit confusion

Unpaid carers have been urged to check what benefits they are entitled to after three councils were found to have incomplete information on their webpages.

South Oxfordshire, Vale of White Horse and Cherwell district councils have now all updated their websites to fully reflect the available council tax savings.

Juliet Cocks, head of service at Carers Oxfordshire, said it reflected wider confusion about the benefits process and that "even councils can get things wrong".

The "information lapse" was found as part of a national investigation by the website, MoneySavingExpert.com.

After being contacted the district councils updated their pages within a week.

Cocks described council tax support as "one of the most important but often overlooked" benefits, with some carers being offered a significant reduction or even full exemption from paying.

She said the process of understanding the benefits system was a "minefield" and it was "particularly tricky" for those new to caring.

But Cocks urged carers to check what they were entitled to, as caring can increase the financial pressure on people by reducing income and increasing living costs.

By going through the process to identify as an unpaid carer and receive council tax reductions, carers can also unlock further benefits and entitlements, she said.

The investigation found 69 councils in England and Wales had incomplete information about the live-in carer council tax discount on their websites, suggesting "far fewer people are eligible than really are".

A Vale of White Horse and South Oxfordshire spokesperson said: "Our latest online discount form takes people through specific questions and lists all the discounts available and any queries from people about discounts are dealt with correctly.

"Certain wording on the form has now been updated to fully reflect all the legislation changes."

They added that the previous form was "highly unlikely to have impacted applicants" and that they also publicise any discounts on the explanatory notes section of the council tax bill.

Cherwell District Council confirmed it had also updated its pages.

A spokesperson said on review of their webpage "it was noted that the full qualifying criteria did not reflect lower rate of attendance allowance".

"These pages have since been reviewed along with the customer portal to correct this information," they added.

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