Lat time I spoke to Edinburgh Council about such matters, their system had been down for over a week. I was gob-smacked... If that had happened in my work, most of our staff would now be clutching their P45s, but the woman reported it in a kinda matter-of-fact happens-all-the-time sort of way.

Do keep on top of it however - Edinburgh Council has now taken on a policy of farming out overdue debts to Solicitors quite quickly. 'course once they've passed it on, they refer you to the solicitors even if they shouldn't have passed it on in the first place. Hit head off wall and repeat.