Council pursuing unpaid tax from 27 years ago

A cash-strapped council is pursuing unpaid council tax from 1998 and the number of residents who received bailiffs visits over unpaid bills has gone up by more than 200%, data has shown.

Slough Borough Council said in November it needed to find more than £28m in savings in order to balance its budget.

Francesca Smith, senior research officer at the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute, said the fact the council was pursuing payment from 27 years ago was "emblematic" of the financial pressure it was under.

A council spokesperson said the increase in bailiffs visits was due to the cost of living crisis, adding the authority's debt collection policy "has not changed" recently.

The data, obtained through a Freedom of Information request, showed that 1,923 residents received bailiffs visits over outstanding council tax bills in 2019.

That figure fell in 2021 as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, but in 2022 it was 6,268 - a 225% increase on three years previously.

It fell slightly in 2023 but was still more than double the 2019 figure.

If a council tax payment is missed, councils can send the bailiffs to seize property if other ways to recover the debt - for example, issuing legal notices or deducting it from wages or benefits - have failed.

Ms Smith said she was not surprised by the figures.

"In the context of councils being cash-strapped and under a lot of financial pressure... continuing to chase payments that are over 20, 30 years old is kind of emblematic of that," she said.

She said receiving a liability order - a legal demand from the council tax to pay money owed - could be distressing, especially if it related to a bill from a long time ago.

"The shock - both financial shock and more obviously, mental health shock of being chased for a debt from so long ago that you might not even have realised existed or have long forgotten about - can be really significant," she said.

"Trying to understand that information when it's so unexpected and often so complex, because you have to dig through your payment history basically and figure out where it came from,... can be particularly challenging."

The spokesperson for Slough Borough Council said: "We do have debt going back many years and many residents will have debt over multiple financial years, but in most cases we have agreements in place with residents to pay them."

They urged residents who were struggling to pay their council tax to contact the authority.

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