A GROUP representing York pensioners has welcomed plans to introduce council tax discounts - but accepts they could be some way off.

Members of the York Older People's Assembly, who met City of York Council leader Steve Galloway to debate the issue, said discounts would ease the burden for pensioners.

But assembly chairman Don Parlabean said there was not a "cat in hell's chance" of them being introduced before the start of the next financial year, because of the complexity surrounding their implementation.

"It's nice to know that someone has considered that pensioners are getting clobbered with council tax," he said.

"Those in their 80s are getting clobbered the most because they don't get a chance to pay into top-up pensions. But we realise it's not straightforward to implement the discounts."

Coun Galloway said the council had agreed to consider giving discounts to pensioners by limiting next years' increase in council tax to the level of the increase in pensions.

For example, if the overall council tax was going to be eight per cent, pensioners would pay two-and-a-half per cent, leaving all other residents to pay ten per cent in order to make up for the discount.

But Coun Galloway said the process was extremely complex, as the council tax computer does not currently record who is or is not in a pensioner household and not all pensioners are on low incomes.

"The practicality of pensioner discounts is something of a conundrum," he said.

"It would be a particularly difficult system to operate."

Coun Galloway said one solution may be for the council to look at alternative ways of recompensing pensioners, such as by increasing the value of travel concessions.

Mr Parlabean added: "I know it's a devil of a problem and we won't solve it for everyone. There's not a cat in hell's chance of getting it through by April unless a miracle occurs and someone comes up with a brilliant idea."

Julie Wright, assistant director of resources, said: "This is a very complex issue and we are currently investigating the options fully.

"We will make recommendations to the executive at the end of the year."

Updated: 10:50 Friday, October 31, 2003