# Local Council Tax Support

## Introduction&#x20;

Local Council Tax Support (LCTS) is a welfare benefit provided to those people on a lower income and helps with the cost of Council Tax.&#x20;

LCTS was made the responsibility of Councils back in 2013 having previously been called Council Tax Benefit. Council Tax Benefit was actually a DWP benefit but one that was administered by Councils. This meant the rules/calculations prior to 2013 were fixed.&#x20;

With LCTS councils were able to create their own schemes enabling them to simplify the scheme (or in some cases make it even more complex). This is why our own calculator now has dedicated ratesandvalues files for pre/post LCTS introduction.&#x20;

However, relatively recently councils have increasingly looked to adopt even simpler schemes that more closely align to council discounts. These schemes are designed to enable:&#x20;

* simpler administration&#x20;
* council tax staff to take over the administration of council tax support
* a minimisation of the effect of income changes as a result of thousands of updates from DWP

