Cllr David Harris, Cabinet Member on Cornwall Council responsible for Resources, has provided an update on the council’s distribution of the Government’s £150 council tax rebate to help in the cost of living crisis.

The council tax rebate provides a payment of £150 to households living in council tax bands A – D. Payments will be made from April 2022 and will not need to be paid back.

Cllr Harris said:

“I am pleased to say that Cornwall Council has already distributed a significant amount of the funds made available from the Government for this council tax rebate.

In the first instance these payments are being made to people who pay their council tax by direct debit, as we hold their details and are able to process them relatively quickly.

In Cornwall I can confirm that there are 159,000 eligible households who pay by direct debit, and of there 149,000 were sent out in the past week.

The system that makes the payments has requested more information on the remaining 10,000, which we will gather next week and pay as soon as we have it.

If not on direct debit, eligible households will get an email, where we hold details, or a letter from us  asking them to either fill in online form(available tonight hopefully) or to telephone in to provide bank details.

Our aim is that once we have all the correct details we will pay the remaining eligible households within 14 days and that by 14 May all eligible households not already paid will have had some sort of communication from us explaining what to do next.

I am pleased to also confirm that we have been told Cornwall Council is the second most efficient authority in paying this rebate nationally via this method, having paid most of ours already, while some other local authorities won’t get around to it until September.”

Cornwall Council will only contact people by email or letter about this rebate. Please be aware of potential scammers and we will never call and ask for bank details over the telephone.