Issue - meetings

The Panel received a deputation from Haringey Acorn in relation to the Council’s use of private sector enforcement agents to collect outstanding Council Tax debt. The deputation party were Eleanor Whitlock (lead signatory), Owen Kennedy, Elizabeth Cabeza, Kyra Carty and Reuben Bard-Rosenberg. The key points of their deputation is summarised below:

·         The deputation party asked the Committee to scrutinise bailiff use across the borough. Acorn believe that the Council should commit to end use of private bailiffs to collect Council Tax debt and should commit to finding a new approach.

·         Acorn started campaigning in 2022 for an end to the use of private sector bailiffs and are now campaigning on the issue nationally. A number of Council’s have changed their policies.

·         It was suggested that there were three main issues with Haringey’s approach:

1.    Using bailiffs was an aggressive and intimidating way to collect Council Tax debt. Citizens Advice Bureau estimated that one-third of people who interacted with bailiffs were subject to behaviour that broke the law. 60% of people reported intimidation  or harassment. It was contended that, therefore, use of bailiffs likely increased pressures on other public bodies, such as mental health services.

2.    Using private bailiffs to collect Council Tax debt did not improve people’s ability to manage their finances or help Council’s maximise their Council Tax income. Bailiffs added charges, compounding residents ability to pay. Policy in Practice found no correlation between bailiff use and Council Tax collection rates across London boroughs.

3.    Private bailiff companies were not incentivised to improve payment rates in the long term. They made money from levying additional charges on residents and always paid themselves first. It was suggested that if bailiffs actually managed to get residents to better manage their debts, they would go out of business. It was claimed that the introduction of the Ethical Debt Policy reduced the use of bailiffs slightly, however it had failed to significantly lower the use of bailiffs in the borough. It was suggested that last year bailiffs received nearly 9000 Council Tax cases in Haringey and that this equated to almost one-in-ten households in the borough.

·         It was asserted that the poorest, most deprived and ethnically diverse wards in the borough such as Tottenham Green and Northumberland Park were four times more likely to receive a call from a bailiff that the most affluent wards in the borough.

·         Twenty community groups, trade union representatives and local councillors had signed Acorn’s open letter to the Council asking it to ban the use of private debt collection agencies.

·         Acorn set out that the Council did not seem to have a clear understanding of the problem and the administration did not seem to want to work with Acorn to improve the situation.

·         To date, Cabinet Member responses to Acorn’s questions included assertions that bailiffs were mainly used to collect debts from landlords and people living outside of the borough. It was commented that tenants, rather than landlords were liable for Council Tax.

·         Acorn asserted that Haringey’s  ...  view the full minutes text for item 26