Commission provides feedback on guidelines for council rates and hardship support

The Essential Services Commission has provided feedback on the draft ministerial guidelines to help councils manage payment of rates and support residents facing hardship.

The feedback is in response to a consultation from the Department of Government Services and will help inform local government guidelines to ensure councils respond to financial hardship in a way that is fair, compassionate and proportionate.

As part of our submission, we identified areas where consumer protections in the guidelines could be stronger or clearer, in particular to align with Australian consumer law and community expectations about family violence assistance. This includes processes to reduce or avoid the need for ratepayers to repeat disclosures of family violence, and proactively working with ratepayers who have built up arrears.

Our feedback also highlights the need for guidance to help councils implement and embed their hardship and debt management policies and procedures. This includes the need for training, resources and support for council staff, and measuring and reporting of councils’ performance.

We consider both areas to be necessary if councils are to achieve effective and consistent practice across the sector. 

We also recommended the Minister for Local Government set a fair, cost-based maximum interest rate that should not include any penalty. This fits with the broader shift towards more modern, supportive ways of handling financial hardship and debt in local government.

Our feedback reflects what we have learned through designing and administering hardship protections in essential services, along with insights into the experiences of Victorians in vulnerable circumstances.