Professor: Council debt collectors can help trap families in poverty
Morag Treanor is one of Scotland’s most influential academics, a specialist in interrogating data to expose how child poverty is caused and how it might be eased. Her spread sheets are, however, illuminated by real life.
Her number-crunching is bolstered by interviews with families on the edge of financial crisis as the Professor of Social Policy and Inequality at Glasgow University details how policies impact lives.
She said: “New mothers once got vouchers for free powdered milk at the health clinic, for example, but that stopped after a new policy came in to encourage breast-feeding.
“So today women don’t get the vouchers but they also don’t get the informal contact with health professionals, the sense of community and all the support that goes with it.
“Policies matter, they have consequences, intended and unintended, and when you speak to families you realise how much of their experience is shaped by policy.”
Treanor recalls one interview with a woman with four children under six, who was only getting benefits for two because of the child benefit cap.
She said: “She was doing things like getting her baby milk on Amazon and trying to pay for it in instalments.
“She was getting into more and more debt and more and more money was being taken off her benefits to pay back rent arrears, council tax arrears, gas and electricity arrears.
“It’s a cycle that just gets faster and faster but councils and other public sector organisations can help break it.”
How public debt owed for council tax and rent, for example, is pursued has been a focus of her research in recent years as her analysis provided the evidence needed to make the case for change.
Some of her research has been commissioned by Aberlour, a leading children’s charity campaigning for reform to how public sector pursues debt which is governed differently to the private sector and can, the charity says, be harsher and more punitive.
Speaking before the landmark conference bringing together experts, campaigners and policy-makers at Glasgow University, Treanor said it is now beyond doubt that how public sector organisations pursue debt, like council tax arrears, is trapping families in poverty.
Women, single mothers and their children, are far more likely than men to struggle as they become trapped in a cycle of debt as benefits are seized at source to repay debts that, often, were shared with a former partner.
Treanor said: “Policy-makers and public sector organisations must understand how their systems can facilitate financial abuse.
“How, for example, when a man leaves the family home, his former partner is often made liable for their entire council tax debt.
“That is something that can be addressed. The debt can be split fairly but there needs to be a willingness to make it happen and much better communication between organisations and inside organisations.
“One of a local authority departments will be asking the Department for Work and Pensions to take money from a benefits payment for council tax arrears completely unaware that another is asking for deductions for other arrears.”
Treanor said the speed and scale of the pursuit of council tax arrears is potentially the most punitive for families unable to pay.
“It's called a priority debt and goes to debt collection within weeks.
“So a very short time after failing to make a monthly payment, you will be asked for the full annual amount.
“Typically, you will have two official reminders then a final notice is issued for the full amount.
“If that isn’t paid, a summary warrant is issued adding a 10% surcharge and the debt is handed to sheriff's officers. It’s extremely fast.
“A lot of it is automated, a computer system clicking through payments and driving the process forward.
“There is no human intervention there and that will only get worse with Artificial Intelligence being increasingly used to scrape historic records for outstanding debt.
The primary focus of Treanor’s work is measuring child poverty, detailing its causes and consequences and illuminating potential mitigation and prevention measures.
The UK Government announced a 15% cap on arrears that can be taken from Universal Credit but, Treanor said, suggested the range of debtors capable of claiming that money is misunderstood by ministers and, in reality, up to 40% of benefits can be deducted before payment.
In addition, she said, in Scotland council tax arrears can be pursued for 20 years ago before being written off compared to six years in England and Wales.
“The figures quoted for the council tax arrears in Scotland sound huge but that is because they go back so far. The number of people refusing to pay rather being unable to pay is very, very small.”
A pilot run by a council in the North of England could show a way forward for Scotland after council tax arrears were not treated as a debt to be pursued but a potential distress signal.
Treanor said: “They would use it as a chance to get alongside the family and say, right, what's going on? Are you okay? And it transpired that, no, they often were not okay.
“They discovered of the people who weren't paying their council tax, 95% were unable to pay. It was only 5% refusing to pay.”
“They started working with the family and saying, right, let's see who we can bring in to help, rather than just signposting people willy nilly, go there, go there. That doesn't work.
“You need to keep that family at the centre and bring people in and have someone that sticks with them. And it was really successful.
“That is just one council but across England the authorities seem to have more discretion and autonomy over the whole collection process.”
Treanor fears the inability of struggling families to find a human connection at public sector organisations in Scotland only increases their sense of helplessness.
She said: “There can be a lack of understanding of what happens in people's lives.
“Councils should be seeing arrears as a signal that families need support. It should be a reason to intervene to offer support not to make things worse by being judgemental and punitive.”
“Acting with compassion and empathy will only have good consequences.”
Meanwhile, as councils fix their budgets, the research suggests short term cuts to, for example, child and family support services only cost more in the years ahead.
Treanor said: “There is clearly an unfolding mental health crisis, for example, but it is, in fact, a social and political crisis.
“It has been created by 15 years of austerity but is only now presenting as emergency situations in our doctors’ surgeries, in our A&E departments and in our schools.
“We need to talk about root causes and, right now, the way public sector organisations pursue debt is a root cause of families becoming trapped in poverty.
“It could instead be one of the most effective ways of helping them escape.”
Treanor will be a keynote speaker at an important conference hosted by Aberlour on how public debt can help trap children in poverty at the Centre for Public Policy, Glasgow University, on 17 March.
Other speakers include Shirley-Anne Somerville, social justice secretary; Nicola Killean, Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland; Nicola McEwan, director of the Centre for Public Policy; and SallyAnn Kelly OBE, chief executive of Aberlour.
Aberlour is continuing to campaign for changes in how public debt is collected after helping secure funding to write off debt linked to school meals last year.
MSPs on Holyrood’s Social Justice and Social Security Committee will soon investigate the financial pressures of women fleeing abuse.
Kelly believes there must be communication between public sector organisations and more empathy for families, particularly women with children, in debt.
She said: “The way our public bodies pursue women for debts like rent and council can easily sabotage any chance of a new start and financial stability.
“There are far better, more humane ways to manage this debt and we need to ensure the state approach does no harm to families and this has to include a consistent approach to cancellation of debt."
This article was written for The Herald and published on Tuesday 11th March 2025