Debt Talk: Council finance, tax & debt recovery

Birmingham Council went bankrupt and accelerated its debt recovery to collect council tax and other fines by 500% between 2022 and 2023. It was revealed under the Freedom of Information Request. Other councils throughout the United Kingdom also use enforcement agents to recover unpaid debts since many are overstretched with their finances. To highlight the severity of this issue in this month's podcast on Debt Talk, Ripon Ray explored: 'Council finance, tax & debt recovery’.

To assist him with the subject, Helen Ganney from Christians Against Poverty explained the challenges the debt advice sector faces in negotiating with some councils when many clients have insufficient funds to pay council tax debts and are in a deficit budget. Yet, there have been challenges with them and their agents to accept minimal payment or to ...