A proposal surrounding the 2026/27 Council Tax Support Scheme (CTS) will be heard at Cabinet on Monday, 20 October.
Cabinet will be asked to approve the draft scheme for 2026/27 for the purposes of consultation.
Currently, the maximum level of council tax discount is 80% for working age households who are not in employment, with discounts of up to 50% available for working people, depending on earnings.
The current scheme costs £10,446,658. As of August, this includes 6,466 working age households, amounting to £6,400,592.
Cabinet is asked to approve a consultation on a proposal which would reduce the maximum CTS support from 80% to 70% for non-working and by 20% for those who are working. This would deliver a total gross reduction in CTS expenditure of £872,198.
There would be no changes to the scheme for pensioners in 2026/27, as this is set nationally.
Councillor Puja Bedi, lead member for finance, said: “Changes to the scheme last year kept us more in line with what is offered in other Berkshire authorities.
“Given our council’s ongoing financial challenges, we need to look at long-term sustainability and make difficult decisions on where we could make savings in services across the council.
“Making no change is not the preferred option because it will not deliver the savings required.
“If agreed at Cabinet, we will consult on the option which would deliver a higher level of savings, and we want to hear residents’ views on the potential impacts and what could be done to address these impacts.
“It’s never an easy thing to consider, but we will listen to feedback from the consultation before deciding on the final scheme.”
As part of the consultation, the council is also considering how to continue to utilise a Council Tax Support Hardship Fund in 2026/27 to support those who are in financial hardship.
In the first six months of this year’s scheme, 80 households have been awarded payments from the hardship fund.
If approval is given, a consultation will run for eight weeks, from 27 October to 21 December. This will involve talking to voluntary and community sector groups, public events, a letter to all impacted working age council tax support claimants, an online and hardcopy questionnaire, and a consultation email address for queries.
Once the consultation is complete, the results will be carefully considered and a report will come back to Cabinet in January 2026, with a recommendation to be made to full Council to agree a scheme by March.