Tax credit call from Council

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Thu 14th Jul 2005

Liverpool City Councillors have unanimously endorsed a call by Lib Dems Paula Keaveney and Richard Marbrow for changes in the way the tax credit system is working.

The two councillors tabled a motion to last night's(13th July) full council meeting pointing out the failures of the present system - in which around one third of the payments are overpayments and families are left paying back an average of over one thousand pounds each.

Both the national CAB and the Parliamentary Ombudsman have criticised the scheme and Tony Blair has publicly apologised for the mess.

Says Paula Keaveney:

"I am dealing with cases in which people have been wrongly paid through no fault of their own and despite huge efforts to correct information. They then find that the complaint systems don't work either. The whole thing needs a huge shake up.. and the government needs to write off repayments where it is clearly the government's fault in the first place".