Waiting for Council to process my Housing Benefit since moving to State Pension

TimeLord1

My local council cut back the staff as the workload had decreased with UC, so they don't necessarily have people permanently just dealing with the benefits section. Or a section that has a front desk, everyone is told to to go online. It also now has police, Citizens Advice, a job center, vulnerable mothers' help, and NHS clinics. And all were in separate buildings. And residents living on upper floors. And still will cut back more when councils merge. And had one of the top five highest council taxes in the UK was originally second highest. So if your councils are similar don't hold your breath or phone they divert to another council who tell you to go online.

Newcad

Surprise surprise, my HB and CT award letters turned up today. (Both in the same envelope).

They are a bit of a dogs dinner.

The CT covers two preiods. 2025-26 financial year and the current 2026-27 financial year.
Their calculations will take some checking, but as they say the first payment is not due until 01 June* then I have plenty of time.

The HB covers four periods, 02 Mar to 01Apr, 01 Apr to 06 Apr, 06 Apr to 01 Apr 2027, and 01 Apr 2027 ongoing.
(I have no idea how that think that they can work out now what it will be after 01 Apr 2027 when pension rates, weekly rent, etc. will change)?
At a quick glance I can already spot errors in various of their HB calculations.
As I suspected they have used figures before tax, which is OK for the first period when no tax was paid but is an obvious error for the periods after 01 April.
The "Standard Amount" also seems off in at least one of them, and maybe also the State Pension rate used in one.
Again those calcs will also take some general checking.

The first payment is due next week, I'll ask for a Reconsideration after that is in my bank.

*That's another reason why what he said over the phone for CT payments was much higher than I expected, they are only collecting it over 10 months not 12 months.
I thought that I'd seen somewhere that Councils had been told by the Government not to do that anymore?
EDIT. Yes I had, but it comes in next year, 2027.
12 monthly CT payments will be be the default option, although you will still be able to ask to pay over 10 months. (Currently it's the other way round).
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/council-tax-shake-up-to-protect-the-most-vulnerable-households

Robbie64

^

if the first payment is later in the financial year then the payments will be spread over a shorter period of time and not 12 months. The first payment date should always be more than a month in the future (from the date of issue of a revised council tax bill).

The 1st April 2027 ongoing calculation is probably an administrative thing to keep your HB claim open (otherwise your HB claim would end on 1 April 2027 rather than being open ended).

I'm guessing your award letters ran to a large amount of pages. This won't make it easy to read though if you work your way through it page by page it should make it easier to follow.

Newcad

I'm guessing your award letters ran to a large amount of pages. This won't make it easy to read though if you work your way through it page by page it should make it easier to follow.

Oh yes, a lot of pages.

However I've been doing this benefit calculation stuff for others for over 10 years now - so I am well aware of the various calcuations and legislation involved.

It will take a bit of time to work out exactly what they have got wrong, then even more time for them to resolve things after I point out the errors in their calculations, but now that I can see what they have done wrong I'm in the position to rebut their errors.

PS. When did this forum get an autospell/autocorrect that changes your wording?
(I typed the word 'others' but it got changed to 'overs' when I made the post).

PPS. This is not the first time that change to the post editor here have gone pear shaped.

NedS

PS. When did this forum get an autospell/autocorrect that changes your wording?
(I typed the word 'others' but it got changed to 'overs' when I made the post).

The editor was updated a while back. I certainly have spell checking enabled (not sure about autocorrect). On my system, at least, these look like features in the web browser (right click menu) rather than the text editor, but I'm definitely not an expert on such things.

HillStreetBlues

I'm on Win 11 and have speel checkar but donsnt altocorrect.

Spoonie_Turtle

Also depends on your keyboard settings (probably more relevant to mobile devices than desktop - but some of them have autocorrect, and different ones interact differently with this text editor).

Newcad

I know the new editor is a PITA on Android (Firefox browser) and keeps repeating letters/words, especially at the start of a new line.

But it's the first time I've noticed it behaving unexpectedly of Windows 11 (again Firefox browser).

TBH I'm not a fan of it at all, but software developers have to keep changing things to justify their wages whether the changes were needed/wanted or not.

TimeLord1

I think I see something on the app that was advertising that feature. I would say' it's more linked to me app.

nicx83

I mange a housing benefit/ council tax reduction team. 2 years ago we had 13 staff now we have 4 as people left they haven’t been replaced with the reason being given as uc taking more of the work. By the time we put 2 people to answer the phones that leaves 2 people to process all new claims/ change of circumstances and other areas of work. That doesn’t allow for annual leave and sickness where we then drop to 1 person processing claims.

Thank you for thinking of the teams I think every local authority is struggling with this. We used to be able to spend more time with each customer now we can’t offer any of that