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Bailiffs ought to be subject to tougher regulations, according to Citizens Advice, after it revealed the level of household debt has risen to £18.9bn in the UK.
Editor at Credit Strategy. Previously held roles at Accountancy Age, Accountancy Daily and the Leicester Mercury.
In 2014, the government introduced reforms aimed at protecting people from unfair practices, such as aggressive or intimidating behaviour, by bailiffs. However, the charity said that it helped one person every three minutes with bailiff-related problems.
Despite that, the Civil Enforcement Association (CIVEA), the trade body representing bailiffs, said only around 18 percent of the £18.9bn household debt identified by Citizens Advice qualified for bailiff collection.
In July, MPs on the Treasury Committee said government and local authorities were "worst in class" for debt collection, and that bailiff use can cause additional problems.
According to Citizens Advice’s statistics, household debt, such as council tax and utilities, has now overtaken consumer credit as the main financial problem people come to the charity with. Last year, Citizens Advice said it helped 690,000 people with household debt problems, compared to 350,000 with consumer credit issues.
The charity says people with household bill debt were 37 percent more likely to be out of full-time employment and almost 1 in 3 people (34 percent) have a mental health problem.
Despite the 2014 reforms on bailiffs, there are still concerns in some quarters about the methods they use. Citizens Advice cites a case of an elderly couple who owed £700 in council tax who are now “afraid to open their front door” after bailiffs used aggressive tactics and threatened to call in the police if they failed to pay immediately.
A review by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) earlier this year revealed "lingering concerns" about the behaviour of a minority of bailiffs. It was soon launch a call for evidence on bailiffs, which could lead to further reform.
Citizens Advice is calling for the government to commit to measuring the levels of household debt in a similar way to the Bank of England’s monthly statistics on consumer and mortgage lending. It is also calling for the bailiff industry to be independently regulated.
In response, Russell Hamblin-Boone, chief executive of CIVEA, said: “A visit by an enforcement agent is always the last resort. Agents are highly trained and must follow a process set out in detailed regulations to ensure that they collect unpaid council tax and court fines fairly. The fees that are added to the outstanding debt are fixed by government and anyone owing money to the council will receive calls, letters, emails and texts and an opportunity to set up a payment plan.
“We work closely with the voluntary sector and under the regulations people are sign posted to debt advice, which accounts for the increase in numbers. But if anyone has strong evidence of bad practice we will investigate. We are committed to driving up standards and will submit our own robust evidence on the state of the industry in response to the call for evidence when it is published.”
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