Thousands of ‘some of the most vulnerable’ residents in Bury are still to receive the £150 council tax rebate most bill payers got in May.
Bury Council said they are working on around 3,600 payments to council tax payers due to discrepancies between their council tax account and bank account.
The government funded payment of £150 to each council tax account holder was announced in February to help alleviate rises in gas and electricity charges and the funds to pay it were transferred to the council in April.
Local authorities were told that the payments should be made by the end of September this year.
At a full council meeting Conservative deputy leader Jo Lancaster said that thousands of ‘the most vulnerable and in need’ residents still had not had the £150 of relief three months after payments started being made.
She said: “I would like to see the council channelling its energies into making the £150 tax rebate payments to residents.
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“This is £11M the council has received from the Conservative government to assist with the cost of living crisis.
“I have been challenging Bury Council for weeks as to why these funds, which were received in April, still have not been paid to some of our most vulnerable residents that I represent in Radcliffe North and Ainsworth.
“The money was paid three months ago and Bury MBC are clearly benefiting with interest accrued on vulnerable residents’ money.
“The council needs to get on with the task at hand, releasing the funds and distributing them to our residents.”
The council said that it had issued 51,302 payments into people’s bank accounts where they pay council tax by direct debit.
For non direct debit payers they had transferred funds for a further 18,207 people through to the Post Office, where people can get their money by taking a letter with a bar code which had been sent to them.
As of July 13, 12,854 had been cashed, and residents are cashing on average around 350 per day.
A spokesman for Bury Council, added: “That leaves approx 3,600 payments which we are still working on because attempted payments into their bank accounts had been rejected, either due to changes to their bank account details or the bank account name didn’t match the details on their council tax account.
“These are having to be worked through on a one by one basis.”
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