Issue - meetings

The Chief Executive presented the report on the Council’s debt recovery procedures and proposals for actions that the Council could take to support low income households in financial difficulty.  The first element of the report was to request that the committee agree the publishing of the debt recovery procedure in order to improve accessibility to the information.  In practice there was not much discretion as debt recovery was mostly set out in legislation but there was some.  The aim was to provide a clear document that was easy to find and follow. 

Secondly as report was about debt recovery, the report provided information about debt owed to the Council.  Business rates debt has remained relatively steady even though collection amounts had gone up.  The Council had adopted government discount schemes to assist small businesses.  In contrast the amount of Council Tax had been steadily increasing from 2014 to 2019.  Notably the number of debtors had increased significantly since 2013 when the Council Tax Benefit system had changed to Council Tax Support system.  National research showed this was not just a local issue, but amongst other factors it was the Council’s policy choices that had contributed to this change.

The report recommended adopting the Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB)/Local Authority protocol for debt recovery.  The Council had a duty to collect monies owed and Council Tax debt was the most common debt the CAB saw and people presented late when things were complicated and entrenched.  The aim of the protocol was to prevent debt in the first place and to ensure good practice in collection.  The Council had been benchmarked against the protocol and performed well and on adoption the Council would work closely with the CAB.  It was noted that the council had its own debt collection service, would need to improve the information provided to Council taxpayers, and would need to focus on engaging with debtors to prevent debt escalating.  The CAB were supportive of the Council adopting the protocol.

The report also addressed the element of prevention.  The Council’s Strategic Plan set out the objective of a Borough that works for everyone, with the aims of tackling deprivation and tackling health inequality and the work proposed would help to deliver those.  There was extensive data available with regard to low income households in the Borough.  Cost of living was also an important factor for example the affordability of rental properties in the Borough.  This was demonstrated through only 1% of shared accommodation and 7% of other rental accommodation being within the maximum housing benefit amount in Maidstone.  It was also demonstrated by the high pressure for housing as the number of households on the housing register had steadily risen.  The Local Government Association had reported on work to address these issues and identified the benefits to Councils of such action.  The report proposed a pilot scheme, funded through grant allocation, to identify and support low income families where the Council could intervene to prevent problems with the effectiveness evaluated  ...  view the full minutes text for item 152