Almost half of councils increase bailiff use as council tax arrears hit £7.4bn

The Money Advice Trust posted news on 27 August 2026 that almost half of councils have increased their use of bailiffs, as council tax arrears reached £7.4bn¹. The charity said the council tax system is not working well for people in debt or for councils, and that it has published new research calling for a new approach in England¹.

The Trust is a national charity that works to prevent financial difficulty and remove problem debt from people's lives¹. Its services include National Debtline, which offers free, independent and confidential advice on personal debt by phone and online via webchat, and Business Debtline, which it describes as the UK's only free dedicated debt advice service for people who are self-employed and other small business owners¹. It also runs Wiseradviser, a training body for UK debt advisers, which it says 85% of free money advice agencies in the UK access¹.

The charity reports that it helped 216,859 people in 2025 and reached 391,800 people with advice content and information last year¹. It says it has trained more than 45,000 staff in creditor organisations overall, and that it has worked in the area of vulnerability since 2011, during which time it has trained over 300 firms and more than 45,000 staff¹.

The research behind the call for a new approach in England is titled "Lost in the System" and is dated February 2026¹. The Trust's news post on bailiff use and the £7.4bn arrears figure is dated 27 August 2026¹. The sources do not set out the detail of that regulation, which measures the research covers, or how the £7.4bn figure and the proportion of councils increasing bailiff use were calculated; those points have not been reported here.

Why it matters for households

Council tax arrears are a form of debt owed to a local authority, and enforcement can follow non-payment. The Trust's figures indicate that arrears across councils now total £7.4bn, and that close to half of councils have made greater use of bailiffs¹. For a household in arrears, that means the route from an unpaid bill to enforcement action by an enforcement agent is one that a larger share of councils has been using more often, according to the charity's research¹.

The Trust frames the problem as affecting both sides: households in debt and the councils pursuing it¹. Its call for a new approach applies to England specifically, and the research was published in February 2026¹. The sources do not state which councils increased bailiff use, by how much, or over what period, and they do not give a breakdown of the £7.4bn by nation or by council. Households in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are not covered by the call for a new approach in England, and no equivalent figures for those nations appear in the sources.

What happens next

The sources do not set out what that regulation provides, when it takes effect, or which body is responsible for it. No further dated steps are given.

More on council tax arrears is covered in the site's guides.