Council Tax Reduction Scheme Supports Almost 500,000 Scots

9th September 2020

Scotland's Chief Statistician today released the latest Council Tax Reduction (CTR) statistics.

In June 2020, Scotland’s CTR scheme supported 497,960 households and the total weekly income forgone by local authorities was £7.334 million.

The publication covers the period when some of the wider impacts of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic began to affect the CTR figures.

The total number of CTR recipients in Scotland increased sharply in April 2020 with further increases recorded during this quarter as a result of the economic impacts of COVID-19.

The total weekly CTR awarded in April 2020 and during the quarter increased as a result of the rise in CTR recipients.

This was also caused by an annual rise in Council Tax bills - an agreement between the Scottish Government and local government means that locally determined Council Tax increases are capped at 4.84 per cent in 2020-21. The weekly income forgone figure is now at its highest level since the scheme began.