TIME TO END AGGRESSIVE COUNCIL TAX DEBT COLLECTION IN NEWCASTLE

Thanks to Newcastle Citizens Advice for sharing stories where Council Tax collection is going badly wrong. Just one example is a resident who had had cataract surgery and couldn’t work for a while. The forms for this were so confusing that the resident ended up missing a small payment of just £26, and they got a court summons. The fees had by this point added up to £116 – far more than the small payment they had missed. Because of cases like this, I proposed a motion at the Council with clear, practical steps to prevent this kind of thing happening. The whole system is now going to be reviewed against the Citizens Advice Council Tax Protocol, which the Council has adopted but does not always follow. This will also involve Citizens Advice Newcastle, Money Matters, and other local debt advice agencies.