From the Scottish Government today:
Scotland’s Chief Statistician today released the latest Council Tax Reduction statistics. In March 2021, Scotland’s Council Tax Reduction scheme supported 496,580 households (compared to 469,370 in March 2020) and the total weekly income forgone by local authorities was £7.328 million (compared to £6.525 million in March 2020).
The impact of Covid-19 caused a rise in CTR recipients in Scotland, most markedly in April and May 2020 as the economic effects of the pandemic began to be felt, with a peak of 501,680 CTR recipients in August 2020, in contrast to the gradual decreasing trend observed previously.
The total number of Council Tax Reduction recipients in Scotland is now only 10 per cent (55,800 recipients) lower in March 2021 than it was when the scheme began (April 2013), similar to levels observed in September 2016. The total number of CTR recipients in Scotland increased sharply by 4.4 per cent in April 2020 to 490,160 from March 2020 (469,370), with further increases recorded in subsequent months as a result of the economic impacts of Covid-19.
The agreement secured with local authorities, to cap increases in Council Tax to 4.84 per cent in cash terms (3 per cent in real terms) in 2020-21 is also reflected in the increase in income forgone.
Background
The Council Tax Reduction (CTR) scheme reduces the Council Tax liability of lower income households in Scotland. The publication is available at https://www.gov.scot/ISBN/978-1-80201-040-4.
The publication contains figures on Council Tax Reduction recipients and income forgone by local authorities; and further analysis relating to age, gender, family status, deprivation on caseload and weekly award of CTR. This publication therefore covers the period when the impacts of the Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic began to affect the CTR figures and also makes references to the previously published March 2020 statistics for comparative purposes.
The information published is used by the Scottish Government, interested bodies and the general public to monitor the number of people receiving Council Tax Reduction and the amounts being spent on the scheme. The figures are used to help allocate funding for future years.
Tables showing Council Tax Reduction recipients and income forgone in each local authority are published monthly. This news release provides the annual compendium and supplements the monthly release for the data period up to March 2021 published on 25 May 2021.
Further information on Council Tax Reduction statistics, including previous publications can be accessed at:
https://www.gov.scot/collections/local-government-finance-statistics/#counciltaxreduction
Official statistics are produced by professionally independent statistical staff – more information on the standards of official statistics in Scotland can be accessed at: https://www.gov.scot/publications/about-our-statistics/
Talking-up Scotland / Scottish media fact checking is like shooting fish in a barrel 
Great news.
O/T–I note that Alexander McKay, one of the appointed Brit Nit “Scribblers to the Press”* has a missive in the Herod bewailing—-
“Scotland fans, drunk and draped in a flag associated with the SNP”–
Wow! This will be the Saltire, the NATIONAL FLAG of Scotland this clown is demeaning.
When I was still a member of the Labour party( in the early ’70’s), I went to Wembley more than a few times (a week at a time). The Saltire was waved by all and sundry and was never political.
It is not political now. Presumably McKay prefers the Union flag.
McKay was highly supportive of May, then Johnson. If he is representative of any form of Scottish Labour opinion, with his cringe and hatred of anything Scottish, Scottish Labour will never recover.
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draped in a flag associated with the SNP?
He really wrote that?
Wow!
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And, of course, displaying the Union Flag is not at all political ……..
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I will read this properly later. Labour UK and especially their branch office in Scotland have been for a very long time, the biggest conmen/people(!) and scammers on the damn planet. Hell mend ’em. My father who had a very poor childhood, then fought in Malayia (he witnessed the barbarism of the ‘Brits’ right there) and worked his socks off in factories, and we were still very poor, saw them for what they were soon as Blair took the helm…never voted again, he would hate them even more now bless his soul.
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Our football team are draped in the colours of the union. . . . white, red and Navy blue . . . . Wonder who scored that goal for the Union.
The strip should be the colours of the Saltire.
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I feel so sorry for the beautiful animals that were killed to adorn those fat necks, hope in the animals’ next life they haunt the gits.
Labour did nothing for Scotland in their whole ten years at the helm at Holyrood, except they plunged councils into £billions of ‘debt’ with their PFI shceme (scams) and sent back £1.5billion to Westminster saying, nothing to spend it on in Scotland, not education, not health, not social care, not jobs, not infrastructure, nope, ‘nothing’. Absolutely unforgiveable.
The Labour branch offices in Scotland and their disgusting scam re PFI, is still having to be paid off by councils in Scotland, £billions taken from Scottish councils, for a long time to come. If that’s not enough to make people sit up and think why on earth they want a BritNat London HQ’d party at the helm in Scotland, taking orders from London, wrecking lives in Scotland, wrecking industries and communities, I don’t know what would wake them up.
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