Council tax ‘Ethical approach’ as arrears amnesty comes to an end
RESIDENTS who have fallen behind on their council tax because of the pandemic will soon receive letters to start paying again, says Bristol’s deputy mayor.
An unofficial amnesty on arrears during Covid-19 is about to end and reminders will be going out before households rack up too much debt to ever recover, Councillor Craig Cheney told a city council cabinet meeting.
But he insisted that the authority’s ethical debt enforcement policy meant a soft approach would be taken rather than sending in the bailiffs or giving people hardly any time to pay.
It came to light as members approved the council tax reduction scheme (CTRS) for another year, expected to cost £45.6 million, up by £3.3m from April 2021.
Asked by fellow Labour councillor Philippa Hulme how the organisation was chasing arrears in the wake of financial hardships from coronavirus and cuts to universal credit, Cllr Cheney said it was nearly time for the council to begin collecting the money again but that it would work with residents on payment plans. He said: “We rolled out an ethical debt enforcement policy some years ago which was to move away from the use of bailiffs ultimately and away from the very harsh process that existed before, where if you failed to pay and didn’t respond to a reminder, you got a full year’s bill and two weeks to pay.
“So we are continuing that approach. We will issue reminder letters soonish because there is a risk people are building up debts they will never be able to pay back, so we are getting to that point where we need to start letting people know that at some point we’re going to have to come up with a payment plan.
“That will be starting soon. We will essentially be issuing quite a soft letter that says ‘remember this?’ and asking people to contact the council tax team to talk about a repayment plan and then we will be referring them onto specialist debt advice and all the things we introduced as part of the soft collection that we do.”
Horfield ward councillor Hulme said: “It’s really reassuring to hear about the empathetic approach the council is taking so it’s another thing we can be really proud of.”
The council tax reduction scheme has been running since 2013 and provides vital financial support to almost 36,000 lowincome households.
Bristol is one of the few authorities that continue to provide a fully funded scheme, and the only one of the “core cities”.
Cllr Cheney told the meeting that 23,325 of the families it supported were of working age.
He said the £3.3m rise in costs for 2022/23 was based on a 1.99 per cent increase in council tax for next year and 2.5 per cent more working-age households having to use the CTRS, but no extra pension-age caseloads.
“Reasons for maintaining the current system include protections for the most vulnerable and deprived households, reducing debt in those areas of the city where debt is already high and is against a backdrop of successive welfare cuts and reductions in some parts of universal credit and an increased cost of living,” Cllr Cheney said.
“Therefore our recommendation is to keep Bristol’s council tax reduction scheme as it is.”
He said 11,421 households on universal credit were receiving average weekly CTRS relief of £21.26, equal to £1,105 a year, at a total annual cost of £12.6m.
Cllr Cheney added: “As someone who grew up and received council tax benefit, the precursor to this, in our house, it was life-saving in some ways, so we absolutely want to keep it going as long as we can.”
We will issue reminder letters soonish because there is a risk people are building up debts they will never be able to pay back, so we are getting to that point where we need to start letting people know that at some point we’re going to have to come up with a payment plan
Deputy mayor Craig Cheney