Public bodies 'perpetuate harm' on families left in debts to abusive partners

Aberlour Children's Charity will give parliamentary evidence on the urgent need for compassionate reforms and protections against ‘coerced debt’ owed to public bodies, preventing further harm to domestic abuse survivors and their children.

Aberlour, one of Scotland’s leading children’s charities, will today [Thursday 15 May 2025] outline how survivors of domestic abuse and their families are being further harmed by inflexible debt-recovery practices, particularly council tax and rent arrears, imposed by public bodies, at an evidence session of the Social Justice & Social Security Committee of the Scottish Parliament.

Key points that Aberlour’s Chief Officer of Children & Families, Lynne O’Brien, will raise include:

• Systems are failing vulnerable families: Public bodies’ rigid approaches to debt collection fail to consider the coercive or fraudulent nature of debts accrued under domestic abuse, forcing survivors into destitution in order to leave abusive relationships.
• Urgent, compassionate reform needed: Just as FCA standards bind private creditors to treat vulnerable customers fairly, Aberlour calls on Scottish Government and public bodies to adopt trauma-informed, flexible debt management policies that recognise coerced debt as a distinct category.
• Children’s rights at risk: The current approach breaches UNCRC duties by perpetuating child poverty and homelessness when families leave abusive relationships, deepening existing inequalities.

Speaking ahead of the evidence session, Aberlour’s Chief Officer of Children & Families, Lynne O’Brien said:

Women and their children who are victims of domestic abuse and financial abuse are currently being failed. The inflexibility of the systems and processes they have to navigate too often entrench existing inequalities, perpetuating harm on our most vulnerable families. 

“Many are forced to make difficult decisions in order to leave abusive relationships resulting in financial hardship and destitution and burdened with debts built up by perpetrators of the abuse they have suffered. 

“Urgent and compassionate reforms to public debt management and recovery are vital not only to tackle child poverty, but specifically to support women with experience of domestic abuse who face barriers to moving on from homeless accommodation into settled housing due to debt and rent arrears owed to public bodies. Right now, Scotland is failing to uphold the rights of children in families affected by domestic abuse forced into homelessness and destitution, and pushed into poverty due to financial abuse, coerced debt and aggressive public debt recovery.