Haringey Council will spend £1million over the next year in bolstering their council tax reduction scheme.

Previously the maximum discount tenants could get was 80.2 per cent. However at Haringey’s full council meeting last Thursday it voted to extend it to 100pc for eligible residents.

The change will help around 6,100 families. More than half will qualify for 100pc support. A family with two children who earn less than £250 a week could get maximum support.

Haringey’s finance chief, councillor Pat Berryman said the previous decision by the council to lower the relief rate was “not one of its best choices.”

At last week’s meeting in Haringey Civic Centre, the council also voted to double council tax on empty homes.

Cllr Berryman said: “Of the many draconian cuts that the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition made, one of them was to abolish council tax benefit.

“This placed a new burden on many low-income families – and though never reaching the depths of the Lib Dems, there were occasions during austerity when Labour council choices were perhaps, with hindsight, not always the best.”