COURT summons issued to people encountering difficulties in paying their council tax in Burnley have rocketed up by more than 75 per cent since welfare reforms were introduced.

Councillors have been told that the number of summonses sent out by the borough council in 2012-13 was 5,218 - and this had risen to 9,246 for the following 12 months.

And the number of liability orders secured by the authority, over the same two single years, has increased by 76 per cent - up from 4,372 to 7,679, as more low-income families are being ordered to pay for the first time under the Whitehall shake-up.

But a watchdog has found that less than a quarter of an exceptional hardship fund, designed to help out those with the worst problems, has been claimed by those at risk of default.

Now Coun Howard Baker, the borough's resources cabinet member, is urging potential debtors to seek assistance from the fund, which is supported by the county and Burnley authorities.

Coun Baker said: "We need to make more people aware of the hardship fund - so they know if they do get into difficulties then there is help available."

Just £4,399 from the £20,000 hardship fund had been claimed during 2013-14, a welfare reforms sub-group has discovered.

Coun Roger Frost, who chaired the group, said that the hardship fund was not being targeted at vulnerable sections of society

"We felt that the council are not at this time sufficiently proactive in promoting this fund," he added.

The collection rates for council tax, despite a number of eligibility changes and more people becoming liable for bills, has only dipped slightly from 97.03 per cent to 95.74 per cent.

Members of the task sub-group have recommended that their findings should be taken into consideration when council tax support schemes for 2015-16 are drawn up.

And it has called on the authority's scrutiny committee to extend its remit so that changes to the support scheme can be considered by the four-strong panel, also including Coun Betsy Stringer, Coun Paul Reynolds and Coun Trish Ellis, and present their findings to the borough's executive in November 2015.