Council Tax Enforcement Activities from financial year 2021/22 onwards
Case reference FOI2026/02080
Received 31 August 2026
Published 21 September 2026
Request
I am writing to request information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 regarding the Council's Council Tax enforcement activities.
Please provide the following information for each financial year from 2021/22 to 2025/26 (or the most recent year available):
1. Liability Orders
Please provide:
• The number of Council Tax Liability Orders that the Council applied for at the Magistrates' Court.
• The number of Council Tax Liability Orders granted by the Magistrates' Court.
2. External Enforcement Agents (Bailiffs)
Please provide:
• The number of Council Tax cases referred or passed to external enforcement agents (bailiffs) for collection.
• Where possible, a breakdown by enforcement agency used.
3. Attachments to Benefits
Please provide:
• The number of Council Tax debts for which deductions were requested directly from benefits administered through Universal Credit.
• The number of Council Tax debts for which deductions were successfully made from Universal Credit.
4. Attachments of Earnings
Please provide:
• The number of Attachment of Earnings Orders issued in relation to Council Tax debts.
• The number of Attachment of Earnings Orders that resulted in deductions being made.
5. Financial Recoveries (if available)
For each of the above enforcement methods, please provide:
• The total amount of Council Tax debt recovered.
• Any fees charged to residents through enforcement action.
I would prefer to receive the information electronically by email in a spreadsheet or CSV format where possible.
Response
I am writing to request information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 regarding the Council's Council Tax enforcement activities.
Please provide the following information for each financial year from 2021/22 to 2025/26 (or the most recent year available):
1. Liability Orders
Please provide:
• The number of Council Tax Liability Orders that the Council applied for at the Magistrates' Court.
• The number of Council Tax Liability Orders granted by the Magistrates' Court.
2. External Enforcement Agents (Bailiffs)
Please provide:
• The number of Council Tax cases referred or passed to external enforcement agents (bailiffs) for collection.
• Where possible, a breakdown by enforcement agency used.
3. Attachments to Benefits
Please provide:
• The number of Council Tax debts for which deductions were requested directly from benefits administered through Universal Credit.
• The number of Council Tax debts for which deductions were successfully made from Universal Credit.
4. Attachments of Earnings
Please provide:
• The number of Attachment of Earnings Orders issued in relation to Council Tax debts.
• The number of Attachment of Earnings Orders that resulted in deductions being made.
5. Financial Recoveries (if available)
For each of the above enforcement methods, please provide:
• The total amount of Council Tax debt recovered.
• Any fees charged to residents through enforcement action.
I would prefer to receive the information electronically by email in a spreadsheet or CSV format where possible.
Answer: The information for questions 3, 4 and 5 is not held in a form that would enable it to be located, retrieved and extracted within the Appropriate Time Limit which equates to 18 hours as defined by the Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limits and Fees) Regulations 2004.
Our electronic reporting systems are unable to run a report for this information. To ascertain the data requested, officers would need to manually check every live account at the end of each requested year to see if an attachment was made at any point. An initial search has shown that at the end of 2025/26 alone a total of 6,192 active, live recovery accounts would need to be checked for this information, and it is estimated that it would take 1.5 minutes to check each file. Once the details had been identified this would need to be noted and once all files had been checked in this way, the total figures requested could be calculated.
This would at a conservative estimate take at least 155 hours to complete for 2025/26 alone. Where the Limit is exceeded Public Authorities are not obliged to supply the information requested by virtue of S12 of the Act. Please take this letter as a refusal notice under S17 of the Act.
However, within the 18 hour limit:
With regards to question 3, we can provide the total number of cases that had a Live Attachment of Benefits as of 31st March of each year (the cases listed will include attachments to Universal Credit, Income Support, Job Seekers Allowance and Guaranteed Pension Credit).
With regards to question 4, we can provide the total number of cases that had a Live Attachment of Earnings as at 31st March of each year.
With regards to question 5, we can provide the total number of balances collected for all years up to and including each year requested.
For questions 1 and 2 we can provide answers as requested.
Please advise us if this is something you require.
Documents
This is Herefordshire Council's response to a freedom of information (FOI) or environmental information regulations (EIR) request.
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