Councils face a 'care tax' crisis as 14,500 are unable to pay social and personal care bills

Campaigners say the levels struggling to pay now rival those when the organised campaign of Poll Tax non-payment was at its height.

The problem for councils is how they can begin to claw back money from some of the most vulnerable people in society.

Jeff Adamson, Chair of Scotland Against The Care Tax, said: "This level of non payment of the Care Tax indicates a truly unfair and unpopular tax. All the fancy words from the Scottish Government won't cover up the fact that disabled people are being hit, and hit hard, by this tax and are simply not paying.

"Disabled people must be hanging on to millions of pounds in uncollected Care Tax payments that they need more than local councils."

The Learning Disability Alliance Scotland asked all Scotland's councils how many people had to pay charges for such care in their area, and how many were in arrears of four weeks or more.

The freedom of information requests, which 29 out of 32 Scottish councils responded to, revealed that 21 per cent of those eligible for charges - 14,500 people - have not paid and councils have started debt management procedures against 5,600 people. Meanwhile in 2014, 25 disabled people were taken to court for non-payment of what charities have dubbed the 'Care Tax'.

However five councils have not taken either action and the 25 court cases were instigated by just five councils: Clackmannanshire, East Ayrshire, East Lothian, North Ayrshire and the Scottish Borders.

This has led to speculation that the majority of councils are reluctant to deploy heavy-handed approaches against some of their most vulnerable citizens.

In the first year of the non-payment campaign of the Poll Tax only 12.8 per cent of people didn't pay. It was only in the second year of the Poll Tax that non-payment levels rose to 21 per cent.

LDAS, which represents a number of Scottish disability charities, says that while there is a momentum behind calls to end care charging led by Scotland Against the Care Tax, no organisation has yet called for an official non payment campaign.

Instead, it claims current levels of non payment are simply the actions of those who cannot afford to pay a 'tax' that leaves them without enough income to cover other costs essential to the lives of disabled people. Charges often amount to up to 100% of an individual or family's income, a spokesman said.

Shona Robison, Cabinet Secretary for Health, has stated that "charges made by local authorities for social care, where necessary, need to be fair and affordable."

But the organisation argues care charges are the most unfair tax in Scotland, levied by local councils on disabled people who need help with personal and social care.

In response to FoI inquiries, councils revealed that 69,400 disabled and older people were paying care charges, but 14,344 disabled and older people were more than 4 weeks in arrears in payment of these care charges. Of these, 5,583 disabled and older people had debt management procedures started against them and 25 disabled and older people had court action started against them.

Ross McWilliam lives in the West of Edinburgh with his wife Sharon, and both have learning disabilities, while he also suffers from Mytonic Dystrophy and she has epilepsy. They need help with cleaning and leaving the house, for example to shop.

"The council want to charge me and my wife over £200 a month now, because we have not paid the last invoice," he said. "We can't afford it - we have bills to pay and if we did we would be left with nothing at all. We would have to go to foodbanks. Our phone would be cut off, but we have an alarm in case I fall or Sharon takes a seizure and that uses the phone line."

A Cosla spokesman said: "We recognise that many disabled people feel that it is unfair that they are charged for services however the income generated by local authorities from charging regimes is fundamental to the sustainability of services.

"In addition Councils are obliged to ensure that a charging regime is applied equitably across the population. Every effort is taken to ensure that only those who can afford to are asked to make a contribution. We are of course happy to work with any partner organisation to look at the fair application of charging policy in Scotland."