MORE than 900 households across Torfaen are to have £150 automatically credited to their council tax accounts to help ease the cost-of-living crisis. 

The payments are being made to residents who hadn’t claimed the Welsh Government funded payment which applied to householders mainly living in properties classed at bands A to D for the charge and paid from this spring. 

Torfaen Borough Council had £5.2 million to distribute under the scheme and by the end of October had paid out £4.9m to more than 33,000 households, initially via the Bacs banking method. 

Post Office vouchers were then issued to households that hadn’t applied for a Bacs payment and while around half have been claimed there are still 940 vouchers that haven’t been cashed. 

The council’s cabinet has now agreed to credit the council tax accounts of those that haven’t claimed using the voucher. 

The council was also awarded £855,000 to fund a discretionary scheme to provide further support to those struggling with the cost-of-living. 

It agreed to use that cash to help those who weren’t entitled to help from the main scheme, which was linked to council tax, and to families entitled to free school meals as well as funding for community advice services and “community meals”. 

£39,850 was allocated to provide £150 payments to those with council tax exemptions but demand was £6,200 more than budgeted for, and that will be made up from part of the underspend from the funds allocated to support those entitled to free-school-meals. 

A balance of £27,400 from the free school meal allocation will be held as a contingency should further eligible households come forward and if still unclaimed will be used to fund discretionary housing payments. 

The council has also issued £138,134 to the Citizens’ Advice Bureau in the form of energy vouchers it will be able to issue to people whose income and outgoings they have assessed. Payments can be made whether or not someone is in receipt of any named benefit. 

Council leader Anthony Hunt praised officers for their work in drawing up the payment schemes in Torfaen. He said: “That is money in people’s pockets thanks to the hard work of officers behind the scenes. 

“I think the targeting of support at families with children on free school meals was right. I would love to be able to help everyone but I would say to anyone struggling please don’t suffer in silence and advice is available.” 

He said as well as the Citizens’ Advice Bureau people can contact the council for advice.