Council Tax: Prosecutions

(asked on 15th November 2017) - View Source
Questioner
Jim McMahon Portrait
Jim McMahon
(Labour (Co-op) - Oldham West and Royton)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people were charged with non-payment of council tax in each year from 2010 to date; and how many of those people served a custodial sentence as a result of that non payment.

Answered by
Dominic Raab Portrait
Dominic Raab
This question was answered on 14th December 2017

Non-payment of council tax is not a criminal offence. Where a person fails to pay the council tax after it has been demanded, the local authority may apply to the magistrates’ court for a liability order. Liability orders are granted for the amount owed plus reasonable costs. If they are still not paid the local authority can apply for a warrant committing an individual to prison; an individual cannot be fined for non-payment of council tax.

The number of people imprisoned following non-payment of council tax in England and Wales, by financial year from 2010/11 to 2016/16 can be viewed in table below.

National

2010/11

2011/12

2012/13

2013/14

2014/15

2015/16

2016/17

Number of Committals to Prison

111

116

98

110

86

65

106

Number of Suspended Committal Orders

1,087

1,283

1,120

1,212

1,182

1,089

1,017

Number of Suspended Committal Orders further Suspended

607

566

357

457

357

319

299

Source: HMCTS management information

Notes:

Data are taken from a live management information system and can change over time.

Data are management information and are not subject to the same level of checks as official statistics.

The data provided is the most recent available and for that reason might differ slightly from any previously published information.

The report assumes that 'prosecutions' is a count of the number of Council Tax cases where the following results were applied: CDIMPS (Suspended Committal Order) SC (UPD - Suspended Imprisonment to enforce money owed) SUSPS (Suspended sentence order - imprisonment) CDIMPSF (Further Suspended Committal Order) CDLTI (Civil Debt etc Committal to Prison, Imprisonment (Effective Sentence) CW (UPD - Imprisonment in Default Subsequent to Imposition) IMP (Imprisonment Effective)
Where a Case is subject to a Suspended Committal Order, a new Case may have been created for the same Council Tax Case, which then resulted in a Suspended Committal Order being further suspended and/or an imprisonment result being applied.

The issuing of a Committal Warrant does not necessarly mean that someone served a custodial sentence, as they may have paid the outstanding Council Tax at any point up to being arrested and physically taken to prison or the Committal Warrant may remain unexecuted where, for example, the defaulter cannot be traced.

The data is based on the case hearing date.

Data has not been cross referenced with case files.

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