Around 3,000 Cotswold District residents may have received incorrect council tax bills after a payment scheduling error occurred in the council’s tax system.

Residents who usually pay monthly over 12 months were sent a bill last week which included payments over 10 months instead, meaning their monthly rate has increased.

The error impacted less than seven per cent of households, who will be sent an amended bill by Saturday 27 March showing the payments changed back to a 12-month schedule.

Payments are not due to be taken by Direct Debit or paid by cash until April 6, so residents will not need to make a higher payment as a result of the error.

“We would like to apologise to any residents who have received this inaccurate bill and any confusion or upset it may have caused,” said Jan Britton, Managing Director of Publica Group, who manage the council tax billing process on behalf of Cotswold District Council.

“Our teams did a huge amount of work to get the bills out this year as we were bringing in a new system to improve our efficiency. Despite extensive testing, some bills defaulted to a different payment scheme. They are devastated this error has occurred.

Council tax bills are issued every year and residents have the option to pay their bills over 10 or 12 months.

The error meant that all accounts paying over 12 months defaulted to the 10-month option.

“We will have correct bills issued by next week and will automatically change the payment systems back to residents previous preferences so there is no impact on what residents are paying.”

Anyone who usually pays their bills over 10 months will see no difference in their bill, and no one affected needs to take any action.