Bristol council ‘will spend a very large amount of money’ chasing council tax debts

Bristol council ‘will spend a very large amount of money’ chasing council tax debts.

Bristol City Council will “spend a very large amount of money” chasing council tax debts, opposition councillors have warned, if controversial changes go ahead.

The council is proposing to start charging some of the poorest households council tax, to raise £3 million.

The council tax reduction scheme currently means people who would struggle to pay council tax can receive a discount or don’t have to pay at all. But due to government funding cuts and rising demand for services, the council is struggling to balance its budget and needs to find extra cash somewhere.

A public consultation on changes to the scheme was recently extended until November 26 after a legal challenge. The planned changes were criticised by opposition councillors during a full council meeting on Tuesday, October 31.

Green Councillor Patrick McAllister said: “The administration entertains the prospect of cutting poverty reduction measures to save cash, heedless of the economic and social destruction which that would wreak. The consultation was deeply flawed from the outset, as Greens pointed out in scrutiny, but our concerns were brushed aside.

“The Green group is very sceptical that this proposal will save £3 million, as it will damage local economies and Bristol already has a low collection rate of council tax. Saving money now at the cost of weakened resilience of the people of Bristol is cruel, foolhardy and will cost us more in the long run.”

The proposals in the consultation would only impact those of working age, and not those old enough to receive a pension. Options include maintaining the current levels of support; reducing the help available with means testing; and introducing a banded scheme providing different levels of support depending on incomes.

Knowle Community Party Cllr Gary Hopkins added: “This really is the wrong way to do things. At a time when the poorest in society are struggling for all sorts of reasons, to say they’re going to have to find money that they’ve never had to find before is not good.

“As well as the effect on the people who are being asked to pay, we also need to look at whether this is an efficient way of tackling that gap of £3 million. There will be a very large amount of money spent on trying to collect money from people who don’t have it. And that really is an inefficient use of council resources.”

The proposals have been heavily opposed by Acorn, the community union, who recently disrupted a council meeting to make their voices heard. But if the changes don’t go ahead, then £3 million of cuts could likely land elsewhere, according to Labour mayor Marvin Rees.

Mr Rees said: “If we say we don’t like a saving in one place, we then should — as responsible elected leaders — say where else we would be willing to make that saving. You cannot withhold an effort to make a saving in one place without it having a consequence for another area of the council.

“That’s a conversation that rarely happens. Just like when people oppose housing delivery, they rarely then take the next step and say where they would like housing. People are let off the hook for that too much. We cannot have everything we want all at once.”