Debt Talk: Council tax, debt & enforcement on Debt Talk (Feb 2023)

(February 2023)

In this month’s podcast on Debt Talk, Ripon Ray explored the current landscape for councils to recover council tax. Since the introduction of welfare reform over ten years ago, nearly every councils in the UK expect some forms of contributions from households regardless of many households were deemed too poor to pay prior to the introduction of the reform. At the same time, Britain has seen an increase in the recovery of council tax through the Magistrates' Courts.

While the number of households in arrears has increased throughout the country, there has been a surge in the use of civil enforcement agents to recover priority debt. To explore this month’s topic, Ripon Ray spoke with panelists from the debt enforcement and debt advice sector to explore the current framework in which councils work and ways council tax has been recovered.

Samantha Nurse - Founder and CEO of Money Advice Hub spoke about the way councils throughout the UK charge council tax and the way they work out what support low-income households get along with challenges debt advice services facing due to the cost of living crisis.

Russell Hamblin -Boone - Chief Executive Officer of Civil Enforcement Association Limited - explored how contracts between councils and civil enforcement companies work, and the way civil enforcement officers' behaviours are monitored and scrutinised. Also what role does the Enforcement Conduct Board play a part to support vulnerable communities?

Both of my panelists also provided some tips to ease the pressure during such a difficult time.

Next podcast will explore: ‘Small businesses and insolvency’ during the cost of living crisis.

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