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.

Comments

Budgeting on Your Money Matters...with Ripon Ray

24% greater than on the eve of the financial crisis, Britons owe a total of £72.5bn on credit cards with £400m added to balances in November 2018 alone, according to the Bank of England. In such a mountainous backdrop, it's essential that regulators and the central government put financial education on top of the agenda for the well-being of communities who are struggling with money. On Your Money Matters show, I have tackled this exact issue by interviewing Michelle Turpin Cope, Money Trainer. She personally struggled to manage her money once she resigned from her job as a nurse due to stress and depression. She had devoted her life caring for NHS patients. Once her savings ran out, she had to turn to state benefits; otherwise, would have been destitute. The luxury of spending money on a cup of coffee every day, without realising the impact this purchase would have on her finances, was really an issue for her. Once she went on a money mentor training, she was forced to

A debt free path for a mental health sufferer

It’s a well-known fact that individuals who suffer from a hampered mental capacity - be it mental health or learning difficulties - are most likely to be vulnerable in our communities. They are also more likely to be victims of miss-sold products and services by companies, even though organisations that are providing financial products and services have a duty under the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to take extra care towards these individuals. This is what the FCA has to say about vulnerable customers: ‘ The vulnerability of the customer, in particular where the firm understands the customer has some form of mental capacity limitation or reasonably suspects this to be so because the customer displays indications of some form of mental capacity limitation (see ■ CONC 2.10) But due to a culture of intensive selling to consumers, generated by employers placing and enforcing - often difficult and unrealistic - performance goals which are attached to tempting

Betar Bangla radio’s Ripon Ray: How fashionista turned political activist and debt advisor

PUBLISHED: 09:02 13 March 2019 | UPDATED: 09:03 13 March 2019 Emma Bartholomew Ripon Ray: Picture: Rukya Khan Debt advisor and radio talk show host Ripon Ray tells Emma Bartholomew how he’s seeing more and more people who are unable to just pay the basic bills Ripon Ray: Picture: Nick De Marco Self-confessed “arty-farty creative” Ripon Ray originally set out to be a fashionista in life, when he “found his calling” and changed track to become an activist. He’d been studying at the London School of Fashion, but going on an anti-fascist protest “triggered a couple of things”. “I dumped my studies and went to Kingsley College where I was doing full-on activism, and organising protest marches,” he told the Gazette . “I loved it but I got kicked out of there because I was too much of an activist and I wasn’t focusing on my studies.” He knuckled under, bagged a history degree and started out in the charity sector as a housing advisor. Being mugged i

Search This Blog