Council tax debt-chasers on £600 an hour

Council tax debt-chasers on £600 an hour

Insolvency accountants who chase up small council tax arrears of a few hundred pounds charge up to £600 an hour, it emerged yesterday.

The huge fees were disclosed after concern that thousands of vulnerable people are forced into bankruptcy because town halls are using draconian tactics to retrieve council tax debts.

Read more on this story in The Times

More friends and emotional security – how northern children top the happiness league

Teenagers in the north of England are emotionally more secure than those anywhere else in the country and are the most likely to report that they have more than one best friend by the age of 15, according to a major study of children‘s happiness that lays to rest the adage that life is grim up north.

Half of all pupils are bully victims

Nearly half of schoolkids have been bullied over the past year, official figures revealed yesterday.

Read more on this story in The Sun

Middle-class bingers: Young teenagers in affluent areas ‘are more likely to abuse drink and drugs’

Middle-class children living in suburbs and rural areas are bigger binge-drinkers and drug-takers than peers in the inner-cities, a survey said yesterday.

Eleven per cent of children across the country  –  some as young as 10  –  admitted levels of alcohol and drug abuse considered worrying by the Government.

An unacceptable occupational hazard

Many public sector workers will be relieved the festive season is over – far from being a time of goodwill to all, for those working in the NHS, the police and social services, it is a time of heightened danger of assault by inebriated clients or members of the public.

Read more on this story in The Guardian

Record levels of unpaid overtime

Employers had benefited from record levels of unpaid overtime provided by their workers last year in a further extension of the long-hours culture that has characterised the British workplace, the TUC said today.

Read more on this story in The Guardian