Council tax ‘error’ in Gloucestershire sparks calls for council chief to resign
Thousands of Gloucestershire taxpayers were mistakenly charged twice 'due to a processing error'
Last updated 8th Sep 2025
There are calls for a council chief to consider their position after thousands of Gloucestershire taxpayers were mistakenly charged twice amid concerns it “pushed people into their overdrafts”.
Council tax and business rate payers in the Forest of Dean who were billed on August 30 and September 1 were charged twice “due to a processing error”, according to council chiefs.
Forest of Dean District Council chief executive Nigel Brinn, who is on a salary of more than £120,000 a year, said in a statement the council was very sorry for the incident.
He said “this was entirely a banking system mistake” and that it was “not caused by the council or its staff”.
However, the specific bank was not mentioned in the statement on September 7.
Taxpayers were scathing in response to the online statement and blasted the council over the issue.
Michele Scott, one of those who commented, said: “Lovely statement but we had to sort our own refunds through our bank and did not get back until the third at our insistence.
“With all the interest that was earnt I would be interested how this will be put back into the community.”
And Sacha Williams said: “Quick enough to take it. Not quick enough to give it back, pushing people into overdrafts who have a budgeting account and missing direct debits for the first of the month. Joke.
“You can reimburse but what about the missed payment records to credit scores and companies.”
Others were incredulous over the reason given for the mistake.
Karen Griffiths said: “Oh, come on. A ‘banking error’ that magically hits thousands of people with different banks all at once? That’s some impressively coordinated chaos.
“Let’s be real, this has all the hallmarks of a council system glitch (a duplicate file submission is the usual suspect).
“While I’m glad it’s been fixed and I have also received my payment back, I hope the council has concrete, auditable proof that this was a banking error and not an error on their end.
“Because if it was on their end, shifting public blame onto the banks like this could have serious repercussions.”
Peter Engel said the situation was “beyond ridiculous” and that it had taken a week for the CEO to “make an apology, of sorts”.
“The council offered no support to people,” he said.
“I am aware of councillors trying to help people but it is the council’s job! If you try to speak to anyone you get the Publica police interrogation then get told to put in a written complaint.
“Today, (September 5) I tried to speak to the media team, I was advised they refused to speak to me. I was also told in the week that the CEO was an important man and did not take calls. It is no good trying to pass the blame to the bank.
“We, as council tax payers, have no relationship with the bank. Our relationship is with the council.
“If this is still happening a week later and they are taking money without authority then someone needs to take responsibility.
“Maybe the CEO should be considering his position. I was told he was not in the office today. A common storyline with FoDDC!”.
Mr Brinn said in the statement the error was first noticed very late on August 29.
“We immediately published a brief statement on our website and began working with our bank to reverse the duplicate transactions,” he said in the statement a week later.
“Whilst we pushed for a rapid resolution, the process was not straightforward, and we were reliant on the bank to refund individual accounts.
“I am pleased to note that they have confirmed that all duplicate payments were refunded on Tuesday, September 2.
“We are very sorry that this incident occurred and apologise for the inconvenience it has caused. We hope that our prompt actions helped to cause as little disruption as possible for residents and businesses.
“We recognise the concern this incident has caused and remain committed to supporting those affected and working with the bank to ensure that such an error cannot happen again.”