By Mark Smulian | 13 August 2013
A third of people contacting Citizens Advice for help after being chased for payments by bailiffs have council tax debts, the charity has said.
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Half of all those who approached it for help about bailiffs were families with dependent children, the charity said, 46% with parents in employment.
Of 38,262 people helped with bailiff problems between April 2012 and March 2013, a third had problems with council tax debts, it revealed today.
The charity warned that the shift from a national Council Tax Benefit scheme to local support schemes run by authorities in the current financial year could result in more families struggling to pay their bills and facing demands from bailiffs. Local schemes have had to be designed on the basis of a 10% overall cut in resources against those of the old national scheme.
It also said private bailiffs frequently overstated their powers, acted aggressively and levied excessive and illegal fees.
Citizens Advice chief executive Gillian Guy said: ‘We’re concerned that all too often debts, like unpaid council tax, are passed to bailiffs too quickly without recognising that the person may be struggling and need help like repayment plans.
‘Creditors need to be identifying debt problems earlier and offering support, and never side-stepping responsibilities by handing it over to bailiffs.’
She called on councils to sign up to the charity’s good practice protocol on council tax debts, which includes highlighting different payment date options so people can budget more effectively.
Responding to the figures, the chair of the Local Government Association’s finance panel, Sharon Taylor, said councils try to work with people struggling to meet their council tax bills and ‘bailiffs are the option of absolute last resort’.
She added: ‘This is a concern for the people struggling to pay their bills and represents an additional emerging threat to funding for local services.
‘Councils have a responsibility to all taxpayers to ensure that council tax is collected. Usually more than 97% of council tax is collected in the year it is billed.’
