‘Can’t pay’ or ‘won’t pay’: Local Authority Approaches to Council Tax Arrears

Council tax bills and arrears are on the rise. In England alone, council tax arrears have hit a record £6 billion; nearly double that owed in 2019/20 and a figure increasing by as much as £10 million every week. While much scholarly attention has focused on the design and burden of council tax, this paper explores the largely overlooked front-line decision-making of local authority staff tasked with recovering arrears. In the context of an ongoing funding crisis in Local Government, these front-line decision-makers are under huge pressures to maintain high levels of council tax recovery. Drawing on interviews with council tax collection staff across 20 English local authorities, we explore a routinely adopted distinction that shapes enforcement action: whether a debtor ‘can’t pay’ or ‘won’t pay’. We argue that front-line decision-making on this ‘can’t pay/won’t pay’ distinction mirrors similar dynamics in the literature on the ‘deserving’ and ‘underserving’ poor. Our findings highlight four key themes: the use of ‘engagement’ as a proxy for a household’s willingness to pay, the impact of scarcity pressures on recovery processes, the detailed (and often subjective) assessment of household expenditure, and a belief in debt collection as a tool for behavioural change.