MORE than 6,500 residents of Blackburn with Darwen now go online to check and pay their council tax bills.

Borough finance boss Cllr Andy Kay has revealed the latest figures in a report to Thursday's full Council Forum meeting.

He tells colleagues: "We are continuing to promote the online forms and account where possible with customers.

"There has been a steady increase in the take up with over 6,500 council tax payers now accessing their bill on line.

"In respect of performance, the council tax and business rates collection rates have improved during 2017/18 compared to the previous year.

"The increasing number of Universal Credit claims is also having an adverse impact on the administration of council tax accounts. As the Department for Work and Pensions now directly advises us of every ‘Change in Circumstance’ for every Universal Credit claimant, we now have to recalculate and issue new council tax bills each time as a consequence.

"This is generating additional workload within the team which will continue to increase as more claimants migrate to the Universal Credit system.

"At present however, performance in assessing Housing Benefit and Council Tax Support claims has continued to improve with the average assessment time for both during 2017/18 being 14.9 days.

"This figure is the best ever achieved by the council and also marks the council as one of the best in the country."