Parliament Workbench

Petition · PE01634 · Session 5

Equality in council tax payment options

Closed Submitted 29 Nov 2016 People & Communities
Signatures
0
51 online signatures with a country
Comments
2
Considered
3 meetings
in the Official Report

What it asks

Calling on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to clarify and improve current Scottish council tax legislation in order to make council tax payment over 12 months a mandatory option for council tax payers, as it is in England and Wales.

What the petitioner did first

I wrote to my local MSP (Jenny Gilruth) asking for support, with statistics on how many councils currently offer payment over 12 months and the benefits of such an option for the people of Scotland. Ms Gilruth forwarded my letter to Derek Mackay MSP, cabinet secretary for Finance and the Constutution. Mr Mackay's position is that as most local authoritites interpret the regulation as allowing them to offer payments to be made over 12 months rather than 10, he has no plans to amend the relevent Regulations.
Mr Mackay did not suggest any way to help the large number of households who do not have the option to spread their council tax payments over 12 months due to the relevent councils interpreting the legislation as NOT allowing them to offer this option.

Where it was considered

Official Report
  1. 30 Mar 2017
    Public Petitions Committee
    New Petitions
    1 mention
  2. 26 Apr 2018
    Public Petitions Committee
    Continued Petitions
    1 mention
  3. 20 Jun 2019
    Public Petitions Committee
    Continued Petitions
    1 mention

Signatures by country

51 online signatures
  1. Scotland46 90.2%
  2. United Kingdom4 7.8%
  3. England1 2%

Comments

2 comments, oldest first
  1. Jessica Mason 13 Dec 2016
    Thanks to everyone who signs- the more signatures it gets the higher the chances of the petition succeeding!
    On that note please also share as widely as you can on social media and with any groups that might have an interest.
  2. Jessica Mason 10 Jan 2017
    Thanks for all the signatures so far, remember to share as wide as you can to make people aware. There's been a piece in the Fife courier and on Tay FM so far too which is great.