Hundreds of single-person council tax discounts found to be ‘not legitimate’

Nicholas Thomas, local democracy reporter

More than 600 invalid claims for single-person council tax discounts have been uncovered by a city council using anti-fraud checks, a report shows.

Adults living alone, or with adults who are exempt from council tax, can claim a 25% discount on their bills – but must notify their local authority if their circumstances change.

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Cancelled

A report to a Newport City Council's scrutiny committee shows some 627 discounts that were “not legitimate” were cancelled in Newport in the 2022/23 financial year.

That work accounted for more than one in four of the discounts cancelled in Wales that year, according to results published by Audit Wales.

Newport City Council recovered an estimated £350,000 by cancelling those 627 discounts, which has also “prevented an estimated further loss of income” of £450,000.

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National Fraud Initiative

The local authority used a system called the National Fraud Initiative (NFI), described as “an additional check that has been built into the council’s processes for ensuring single person discount awards are valid, with a dedicated and experienced officer reviewing all council tax data matches”.

Households with two adults or more typically have to pay a full council tax bill, and Audit Wales said the NFI “matches council tax data to a range of other data to help identify where people are inappropriately receiving the discount”.

Most cancellations come from matches with data on the electoral register, but Audit Wales said around one in five cases arose because “a member of the household had turned 18 years of age and the local authority had not been informed”.