Five lucky Edinburgh residents have won a year’s worth of free council tax following a prize draw that aimed to encourage more people to pay their council tax bills by direct debit.
The City of Edinburgh Council’s prize draw incentive has proved a remarkable success, with over 15,000 people encouraged to sign up to direct debit payments since the initiative was launched last year.
Over 60 percent of Edinburgh citizens now pay their council tax by direct debit. The Council hopes to increase this number in the coming year – freeing up time spent by staff processing payments and allowing the Council to improve the service it provides.
All customers who paid their bills in this way were automatically entered into the prize draw and five city residents bagged one year’s free council tax.
Councillor Phil Wheeler, Finance and Resources Convenor, said: “This is a great way to encourage people to pay their council tax bills through direct debit – congratulations to all the winners.”
“I am very pleased to see that even more people are recognising the benefits of paying this way. In such a busy world, the ease of direct debit payments is becoming increasingly popular. I hope this will prompt even more people to adopt this way of paying, allowing us to free up resources and redirect them to frontline services.”
One winner, City Centre resident Claire Imrie, said: “We were absolutely delighted to learn that we’d won free council tax for a year. Some of the money we’ve saved has already been spent on a new set of brakes for the car and next month we are treating ourselves to a few days holiday in Switzerland. We pay all our bills by direct debit as it is easy and convenient, and we don’t need to worry about them being paid on time.”
For more information on how to pay using direct debit, visit www.edinburgh.gov.uk/counciltax
