The announcement that the Income Tax Personal Allowance will rise to £10,000, confirmed in the Budget, means the Liberal Democrats’ top priority at the 2010 General Election has been delivered in full by the Coalition Government. It means: A £700 tax cut for 24.5m working people across the UK since the Liberal Democrats came […]

Alongside the Local Government Finance Settlement, the Secretary of State for Department for Communities and Local Government, Eric Pickles, published a document entitled “50 Ways to Save – Examples of sensible savings in local government”. Kingston Council officers have worked through the document in order to establish whether there were any innovations which the Council had […]

Kingston Council is set to peg a rise in council tax bills to less than two per cent following a two-year freeze. Despite a third consecutive year of cuts to its government funding, Kingston Council has vowed to continue to deliver services that matter most to people. This below-inflation rise is equivalent to 52p a […]

The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has cut his share of Council tax saving a family living in a band D property £3.62 per year, or about 1p per day.  What will you do with your extra penny each day? Of course at the same time he’s increases bus and train fares by more than […]

England’s Illegal Money Lending Team, in partnership with Kingston Council, has launched the seasonal campaign to combat loan sharks.  Illegal lenders offer loans which can prove impossible to repay. They prey on people when they are at their most vulnerable and often use threats and violence against those who fall behind with payments. Earlier this […]

Kingston has pledged that people on low incomes across the borough will continue to be protected from council tax increases as a result of the government abolishing Council Tax Benefit. Council Tax Benefit – the system designed to help reduce council tax bills for low income households – will be abolished in April 2013. Instead, Kingston […]

Kingston Council, working in partnership with the Department for Work and Pensions, successfully prosecuted three residents for benefit fraud in August this year. A Chessington resident was claiming as a single mother, despite her partner having moved back into their home several years previously. She received a custodial sentence, suspended for 2 years, for and […]

Kingston Council tax bills for the new year 2012/13  will be issued on 14th March and are likely to arrive on door mats between 15th March and the 17th March. A total of approximately 64,000 bills will be issued together with over 11,000 annual housing benefit notices. It is expected that the Revenue and Benefit […]

Kingston Council underlined its zero tolerance of fraud with 22 successful Benefit and Council Tax fraud prosecutions going through the Courts in the year 2011. Over £370,000 worth of fraud has been identified from these 22 prosecutions.  A further 72 cases were issued cautions or fines, and 90 cases were found to be incorrect, and […]

Liberal Democrat who run Kingston Council plan that there will be no rise in Council tax for 2012/13 whilst spenting more on essential services This is the second year running there will be Council Tax freeze in Kingston and an additional £5.3million will be spent on essential local services, including adult social care placements and homelessness. The Council […]