ASKING the city’s poorest families to pay up to £850 more in council tax a year could force some out of their homes, a councillor has warned.

Green councillor Ollie Sykes has warned about the dire consequences of further reducing the support to help the city’s poorest households with the cost of council tax.

Changes to the council tax reduction (CTR) scheme is likely to affect 2,700 of the city’s poorest households.

The Labour administration’s lead for finance Les Hamilton said a discretionary fund would be on hand to help residents who fall into hardship.

Brighton and Hove City Council introduced the council tax reduction scheme in 2013 after the government changed the national council tax benefit scheme and made it the responsibility of councils.

Government funding for the scheme is reducing year-on-year leaving an estimated funding gap in 2017/18 of £4.15 million.

The council currently subsidies the scheme by almost £2.5 million a year and this support will increase by £150,000 under new proposals set to be agreed in the budget.

In previous years to meet the drop in national funding, the council has generally increased the proportion of council tax all CTR eligible families have to pay.

This year, more specific changes to parts of the scheme are being proposed including reducing the amount of support once benefit allowances reach a certain level.

This move is set to hit almost 2,300 cases and cost them almost £400 a year.

Restricting the scheme to residents living in council tax band D homes or cheaper will hit 152 households up to £850 while cutting off CTR support if it falls below £5 a week will affect 609 households.

Cllr Sykes said: “For individual families the maximum is £850.

“For families that’s an absolutely huge hit.

“If you hit the poorest of the poor families we might be increasing problems for ourselves.

“We might have to find homes for people made homeless by our actions and nobody wants that to happen.”

Cllr Hamilton said: “We are going to be working with community and voluntary sector to make sure that help goes to people who need it.

“We are writing to all the households affected by the changes and inviting them to apply for discretionary funding if it causes them hardship.

“We are caught between a rock and a hard place.

“If we didn’t subsidise this scheme then people on CTR would be paying 58 per cent of council tax but instead they pay only 20 per cent so we think that’s a fair compromise for people.”