Star date: 8th August 2016

A Salford Star Exclusive

NOT ONE SINGLE PERSON PAID FROM £50,000 POVERTY HARDSHIP FUND

Over the last year, not one single person was paid a penny from Salford City Council's £50,000 Council Tax Support Fund, which exists to help those in dire poverty pay their Council Tax.

A Freedom of Information request by the Salford Star reveals that 55 people applied to Salford Council for Council Tax support during 2015-16 - but none received any payments.

Full details here...

Last month, the Salford Star revealed that Salford City Council was investigating why applications from some of the city's poorest people for help to pay their Council Tax had not been `progressed' (see previous article – click here).

The Council has a Salford Discretionary Support Scheme which sets aside £50,000 "for people facing extreme hardship in relation to Council Tax" and is supposed to "respond to immediate hardship from within the city".

But a report for Salford City Mayor, Paul Dennett, stated that "Applications for this funding have not been progressed since the changes in housing services management".

What the report didn't state was how long those in "hardship" had been waiting, how many people in "hardship" were affected and how much from the Scheme had actually been paid out.

Now the Star can reveal, following a Freedom of Information request, that not one single penny was paid out during the financial year 2015-16 to anyone in "hardship"...

55 Salford residents applied to the £50,000 Fund during that year and none received any help, as nothing was paid out during the whole year. On 30th March 2016 those same 55 applications were still waiting to be processed. Which was probably too late for those facing "immediate hardship".

The original Council report stated that "Currently the process for Council Tax support applications is in development, having previously been managed outside of the Council Tax service processes" and continued to detail staff issues and third parties – but 55 applications a year works out at a very manageable rate of just over one per week.

This year, Salford Council has increased Council Tax by 3.75%, while, last year, it forced everyone of working age to pay 15% of their bill, despite their circumstances. At the time, the Council stated it would affect an extra 17,700 people, with those hit living in the city's `most deprived' wards of Broughton, Langworthy, Little Hulton, Barton and Irwell Riverside (see previous Salford Star article – click here).

The money was there, ring fenced, to help those in dire hardship – but not a penny was paid out.