Financial Support for Residents and Businesses

Published: 25 March 2020

Derby City Council is committed to supporting residents and businesses and to make sure that any support is passed through to them as soon as practically possible in these unprecedented times. We have therefore introduced a series of measures for both residents and business to ease the pressures during the crisis.

However, it is really important to remember that Council Tax and business rates pay for our essential services that are delivered to all residents in the city, and so if your circumstances have not changed please play your part by continuing to pay what you should, maintain your direct debit payments, or payment plan, as detailed on your bill. Thank you.

Measures for residents

The Council’s efforts will focus on those residents facing increased hardship from the fast changing circumstances.

• The Council operates a Council Tax Support Scheme (CTS) which supports households of working age with low income, whether in work, unemployed or retired, and have less than £6,000 savings. We are encouraging eligible residents to claim Council Tax Support as soon as possible, should the need arise. We’ll be prioritising the processing of claims to get this support to our residents as soon as possible.
• The Council will receive additional funding as part of the recently announced £500m Hardship Fund which will be targeted at those in need. In Derby, we will use this money to give every household, where there is a working age person in receipt of Council Tax Support, an additional £150 towards their outstanding council tax liability.  This will be credited to their council tax account and will be credited as soon as possible.  If after all discounts and reliefs have been applied, including Council Tax support, the amount of council tax you need to pay for the financial year 20/21 is less than £150 the household will only get as much as is outstanding.
• Under normal circumstances, the vast majority of our residents pay their Council Tax in 10 monthly instalments, starting in April and finishing in January. Recognising the current exceptional circumstances, if a resident requests it, the Council can offer the following flexible payment plans ;
• Up to 12 monthly payment plans running from April 2020 to March 2021 or from the first available month up to March 2021 – so for example if your first instalment date is May 2020 your instalment plan will run for 11 months from May 2020 to March 2021.
• Instalment plans starting in June 2020 and running for 10 months until March 2021.
• All recovery action against households, including for prior years, has been initially suspended until Tuesday 30th June 2020.

We are aiming to do this as soon as possible but need to ask for your patience as we implement these major changes to our systems and payment processes. It will help us to help you if you could contact us by using council.tax@derby.gov.uk as set out on the Council Tax enquiry page and only if you are unable to email then you can call 01332 640000.

Measures for businesses

The Government announced a series of support measures for businesses in the Budget and in more recent announcements to support businesses respond to the Covid-19 pandemic:

• Businesses entitled to the extended 100% rates relief will no longer be required to pay their 2020/21 business rates bill and therefore Direct Debits due for the whole of April l, for those businesses entitled to the 100% relief will be cancelled. If, for any reason this applies to you and your direct debit is collected please contact us and we will arrange for a full and immediate refund of your April 2020 instalment.
• Under normal circumstances, the vast majority of our businesses pay their business rates in 10 monthly instalments, starting in April and finishing in January. Recognising the current exceptional circumstances the Council  can offer special payment arrangements with any businesses who contact us and ask for this to happen, initially delaying the 1st instalment due to Wednesday 1 July 2020, and spreading the remaining instalments over the rest of the 20/21 financial year.
• All recovery action against businesses, including for prior years, has been initially suspended until Tuesday 30 June 2020.
• Small Businesses, eligible for small business rates relief will be entitled to receive a cash grant of £10,000. You will not need to claim this grant but the Council will be contacting eligible businesses as soon as possible with further instructions.
• Businesses within the retail, hospitality and leisure sectors, which operate from smaller premises with a rateable value up to £15,000 will receive a cash grant of £10,000 and those with a rateable value between £15,000 and £51,000 will receive a cash grant of up to £25,000.

We will continue to update our Derby City Council business pages with further details as we receive them.

As with the list of measures for residents we are aiming to implement these measures as soon as possible but we need to ask for your patience as these are major changes to our systems and payment processes. It will help us to help you if you could contact us by using business.rates@derby.gov.uk as set out on the Business rates enquiry page. If you are unable to email us please call on 01332 642428.

Councillor Nicola Roulstone, Cabinet member for Finance said:

We appreciate that thus is a really difficult time for everyone but especially the most vulnerable members of our society and those who are struggling financially. That is why we are committed to providing additional support where possible. We are suspending recovery action for Council Tax and business rates and providing initial flexibility in making payments from April. We’d like to thank residents and businesses who are able to continue to pay Council Tax and business rates despite the difficult times that we find ourselves in – their contribution is helping us maintain essential services. Thank you.

Business, Community