Are you misleading the council on tax?

The 25 per cent discount, worth a minimum of £250 a year, is given to anyone who claims to be living in a property on their own – currently 34,700 people in the area.

While most claims are genuine, the process will use data matching technology to check that information held by the council is accurate and up-to-date and recipients are still entitled to the discount.

The review will use a two stage process to validate legitimate single person discount claims and identify and remove those being claimed in error or fraudulently.

The council has brought in technology specialists CapacityGRID to help establish whether people are genuinely living alone, by cross-referencing with other sources of household information such as, but not limited to, the Electoral Roll registers and financial sector information.

Anyone whose claim for single person discount is under question following the data checking exercise will be contacted by letter and/or telephone.

Anyone failing to respond to requests for further information in relation to their claim will have the claim withdrawn from the beginning of the current financial year or from the date the discount was applied if within the current financial year.

If, during the review process, checks indicate that another adult is living at the address, the discount will be withdrawn.

A spokesman from Central Bedfordshire Council said: “We will be contacting all those we believe to be claiming incorrectly, but in the meantime, we would urge anyone who is claiming the discount and whose circumstances have changed to contact us immediately by telephoning 0300 300 8301.

“The longer you leave it, the larger your backdated bill will be if you’ve been over claiming a discount , so it makes sense to tell us as soon as possible.

“Even if you were living alone when you received your bill for the year, if another adult is living with you now, we will need to re-calculate the amount you need to pay.

“People who are genuinely claiming the discount have nothing to worry about, but anyone found to be deliberately misleading us could face prosecution.