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Checked out the latest on Council Tax and benefits recently?
Fife Council has launched new web pages on the subject, including a benefits checker so people can make sure they are getting all the housing and Council Tax benefits available, and now it’s looking for people to say if the website helps.
An online survey form will run from now until the end of August and it asks people using fifedirect - Council Tax & Benefits if they could find what they were looking for, if the website is clear and accessible - and if it saved them time in follow up phone calls and unnecessary visits to local services centres.
As an added incentive to complete the survey, three great prizes are up for grabs. First prize is a Sanyo digital camera, second prize a golf pass for two at any Fife Council golf course and third prize is four free swim passes at any leisure trust centre.
The new pages offer advice to people about their Council Tax, including what to do if they think they’re paying too much, and details the range of discounts and rebates available.
The benefits section points people to the latest information on housing benefit and Council tax rebate, or Local Housing Allowance as it’s known for private tenants. It also tells people who to contact if they think someone is committing benefit fraud.
Joy Mackenzie, Benefits and Council Tax Service Manager said: “We’re keen to get input from people who actually use the site. We’ve made a lot of improvements to the pages, but there’s no substitute for feedback from people on the other side of the screen. Council Tax and Benefits can be a confusing area, particularly when we start to talk about the range of discounts and rebates available, so anything we can do to simplify the information and make it easier for people to make the most of their money is worth spending time on.”
The new look pages are just the first stage in the development of the new Council Tax and Benefits site. Over the coming months the plan is to:
- develop a students section which will tell students all they need to know about Council Tax as well as adding a facility where they can apply for discount online
- develop a landlords section which will include information for landlords. This follows on the success of a new online form where landlords can notify the Council of a change of tenant
- add new content on the appeals process
- expand the range of frequently asked questions
Joy said: “People expect to be able to do everything online these days, we all have busy lives, so the more we can do to put forms and information online the more responsive a service we’ll be offering to meet the needs of local people.”
The improved pages are part of an ongoing process to keep content on the popular website up to date. New figures show that just over 14 million pages of information were viewed on Fifedirect between April 2009 and March 2010.
Visit www.fifedirect.org.uk/counciltax to find out more about the range of online services on offer.
