Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee Draft Report

Title: The Council Tax Reduction Schemes (Prescribed Requirements and Default Scheme) (Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2013

These Regulations amend both the Council Tax Reduction Schemes and Prescribed Requirements (Wales) Regulations 2012 (‘the prescribed requirements Regulations’) and the Council tax Reduction Schemes (Default Scheme) (Wales) Regulations 2012 (‘the default scheme Regulations’).

These Regulations amend the prescribed requirements Regulations and the default scheme Regulations. They increase the maximum amount of council tax reduction a person can receive under an authority’s scheme from 90 per cent to 100 per cent and they up rate certain figures used within those regulations to calculate entitlement to a reduction and subsequently the amount of a reduction.

These Regulations also rectify a number of minor technical errors that were identified by the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee during its scrutiny of both the prescribed requirements Regulations and the default scheme Regulations.

Procedure:  Affirmative

Technical Scrutiny

Under Standing Order 21.2 the Assembly is invited to pay special attention to the following instrument:-

1.       These Regulations have not been made bilingually.

[21.2(ix) – that it is not made or to be made in both English and Welsh].

The Welsh Government state in paragraph 2 of the Explanatory Memorandum:

“It has not been possible to arrange for the Regulations to be provided in Welsh”

Merits Scrutiny

No points are identified for reporting under Standing Order 21.3 in respect of this instrument

Legal Advisers

Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee

January 2013

Government Response

Given the complexity of the regulations, the timescales within which they were produced, and the fact that there was no existing Welsh equivalent, regrettably it was not possible to translate the regulations in order to provide a bilingual version of the statutory instrument .  When I wrote to you in November in connection with the Council Tax Reduction Scheme Regulations I advised that unfortunately this may be the case.