COVID-19 discretionary help with council tax

Yesterday Mr Mustard saw this council tweet

Mr Mustard was slightly surprised at the apparently generous council action as the budget was under incredible pressure even before the pandemic but once he clicked through to the detail he saw the reason for the largesse, central government had given the council the money to give away. The following information is from a delegated powers report by the council's Director of Public Health.

 Further information is available on the council website, here

If you know anyone facing financial hardship and unable to pay their council tax bill, or needs grant funds to tide them over the crisis, please tell them about the help which may be available.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Direct Debit - Council Tax - Capita - what a whopper

Mr Mustard decided to take up the entitlement to pay his Council Tax bill by 12 instalments instead of 10. Thank you Uncle Eric (Pickles).

He emailed the council tax department of Barnet Council, which is contracted out to Capita, on 12 April. I wish to pay my council tax by 12 instalments. I have today paid £128.65 Notification of the payment amount was so that the council could calculate the correct balance.

He received the following reply on 16 May 2016 (another month having already passed!)

Thank you for your email dated 12 April 2016.

I note you are requesting to pay your council tax over 12 instalments, the 12 monthly payments is only available if you are paying your tax via direct debit.*

With regards to payment by direct debit kindly visit this link where a form can be downloaded and completed or contact the office to set the direct debit over the phone on 0208 359 2608.

Please do not hesitate to contact the Office on the above telephone number if you have any queries.

Yours sincerely

Name Redacted by Mr Mustard
Local Taxation Officer
Barnet Council

Mr Mustard did have a query which was that he had read the guidance about paying by 12 instalments and he knew that it could not be linked to the method of payment. He queried the requirement for direct debit (Mr Mustard can't find this email, it's probably in a PCN file somewhere). Answer came there none but a revised council tax bill spread over 12 months did arrive.

Mr Mustard emailed again on 19 July.

You have now sent me a revised council tax bill spread over 12 instalments but not answered the email I sent before that asking which law required me to pay by direct debit or if this was a council regulation or one of Capita's.

I would still like an answer please.

Thank you

This time, Capita knew the game was up and remaining silent was not an option. He received the following frank reply on 26 July.

I write to advise that the email of 16 May 2016 from name redacted is not correct and apologise for the error. Payment of Council Tax can be spread over 12 months from April to March and there is no requirement for that to be paid by direct debit. Please accept my apology for this error.

Regards

Mr N xxxxxx

Barnet Council Tax

Well done Mr N xxxxxx.

So now we know a trick that Capita play (surely they didn't only try it out on Mr Mustard?) on unsuspecting (not Mr M!) council tax payers. they tell them a whopper of a lie so that they collect earlier. If you were told the same untruth please do let Mr Mustard know (email mrmustard@zoho.com)

Mr Mustard urges all council tax payers not to pay by direct debit as why would you give someone else the ability to take money out of your bank account when they want, you should control it.

Mr Mustard further suggests that if you currently pay by 10 instalments that you ask to switch to 12 to even out your monthly finances. Just email local.taxation@barnet.gov.uk and ask in the same simple terms as Mr Mustard did. Remember to quote your council tax reference and/or the property address.

What other whoppers are Capita telling people?

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

* The whopper 

3 August 2016: An explanation arrives. A one-off error, just as luck would have it to one of Barnet's bloggers.

Prior to the change in legislation enabling customers to request payment over 12 months we did encourage direct debit take up by allowing 12 instalments, This I believe is an isolated case and has been addressed with the staff member and further re-iterated to all staff.

What final notice?

The fuss has died down until next year about Capita's approach to Council Tax collection methods which some councillors reported to a committee as being less understanding of residents with financial problems. This is anecdotal evidence as opposed to a statistical study which councillors really don't have sufficient time to carry out. One must of course remember that Capita have promised to improve collection rates that were already pretty good and they could only do that, in Mr Mustard's view, by being less prepared to give time to pay. Mr Mustard is sure that short term improvements can be made but thinks that more people will be driven to evade the bailiff (if you are truly poor there won't be anything in your home worth seizing and selling) to move away and to bankruptcy (and on the NNDR front more businesses will be sent to the wall) and ultimately the strategy will fail.

During the time that this issue was in the spotlight for the main 2014-15 summons issuing phase, Cllr Richard Cornelius was armed by the chief officer with information about the way collections worked and some stats. Of course, the stats showed that Capita were issuing fewer summonses than the council used to (which Mr Mustard simply didn't believe. He would want to look at every case for both years to make a proper comparison).

Here is a broad time-line (instalment should have only the one L as we are not in the USA)

Mr Mustard highlighted in red some interesting parts of the table which he suspects most people will find astonishing. There is no need for the council to issue anything other than a first or second reminder before adding your name to a huge list of cases filed in the magistrates court which get rubber stamped as debts and have issue costs added to them. The least most people would fairly expect is a fair warning that legal action is imminent and Mr Mustard thinks that should be the standard practice. Here is proof that cases are going to Court without a final notice in the form of the numbers from Richard's long email.

Action	#
First reminder	29,492
Second reminder	8,574
Final notice	10,768
Summons	13,373
Bailiff	4,556

As you can see there were 2,600 more summonses than Final Notices and bear in mind that many people who received their final notice would have paid up so that means even more people had the shock of going from a first or second reminder straight to Court. Mr Mustard does not think this is equitable. Government have given councils a huge advantage over commercial businesses when it comes to the recovery of debt.

Mr Mustard is currently working on a large trade ledger for the supply of goods. He has a debtor who owes £50,000 for goods of which £40,000 were supplied late. His client has since gone in administration (a form of insolvency) and suddenly the debtor wants to pay 50% to cover his losses. It is an opportunistic as opposed to real claim as no mention was made of any alleged loss prior to the appointment of the Administrators. Mr Mustard cannot simply go off to Court and issue proceedings. Solicitors have to issue a clear notice that Court action is being contemplated and offer alternative dispute resolution of some kind. This all slows the process down and would give an unscrupulous debtor time to dissipate his assets (Mr Mustard's debtor isn't going to disappear and can easily pay, he just has an eye to the main chance and mistakenly thinks the Administrators won't have money to spend on legal action. Oh dear, how wrong he is. This sort of case illustrates why Mr Mustard has less time for blogging at the moment - he is fully occupied with this sort of nonsense).

Given the enormous one-sided power granted to councils they should exercise it with discretion but as we have seen with parking tickets give a council the power to do something that lines their pocket, they will use it with alacrity.

Just returning to Richard's email for the moment it also says that 95% of calls to the call centre about Council Tax were answered (it must have dedicated numbers or otherwise one wouldn't know what the missed call was about). Richard doesn't say anything else about that statistic so Mr Mustard will. It is a disgrace as there are an average 9,400 calls a month about Council Tax so 470 or so were not even being answered. The target should be 99.9% Why do councils sign contracts for mediocre service levels?

Richard's final point "Finally, all calls to the Council tax service are recorded" so if you are locked in a dispute with the council about your case you can file a Subject Access Request, pay £10 and get the recordings and all the notes about your case.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Update: You can ask to pay your Council Tax for next year in 12 instalments rather than 10. Contact the council now to ask for this. You can email local.taxation@barnet.gov.uk quoting your council tax number or your name and address asking now for this facility for next year.

Where most people come unstuck is that are late paying a single instalment and then the right to pay by instalments is lost and you are expected to come up with 12 month's council tax when you were struggling to pay one. The sensible thing would be to reschedule 11 month's remaining tax due over the 10 months to come but that would be to look for some commonsense and help from a body (Capita) whose interest is profit and who doubtless get penalised if they don't hit the collection target or get a bonus if they do. Any such financial gain is at your expense. Remind Mr Mustard, isn't Crapita meant to work for the benefit of and at the service of residents? Councillors who agreed to sign up to a contract they didn't read, certainly didn't put the community first. They should have been asking questions like "How will you collect more council tax more quickly without upsetting residents and creating extra caseload for councillors?" As history shows, they collectively asked bugger all.

Capita - too busy to cope (self inflicted)

which illiterate person put an apostrophe after Magistrates?

As readers will know the collection of Council Tax has been handed over to Capita. They have promised to improve the collection rates which were actually pretty good before they even got involved. The way in which they are going to do this is pretty blunt, rather than giving any leeway they will simply hit every transgressor with a big stick (metaphorically, that is). It is a strange situation as if Mr Mustard is confronted by a debtor without the means to pay, when in his alter ego's debt collection job, he is required to accept reasonable instalments. Not so the council or their henchmen at Capita.

There are two particular points which worry Mr Mustard about the above.

The first is the lack of a private room in which to discuss your financial affairs. This is odd as the Court's own website says that there are interview room facilities but perhaps only legally qualified representatives are entitled to use them and Capita probably use cheapjack unqualified employees who thus don't have the right? (Mr Mustard is surmising so do please put him right if he is wide of the mark). Being forced to discuss your financial affairs in public strikes Mr Mustard as a situation which could easily breach the Data Protection Act and even if it doesn't every criminal (con artists included) wandering about the Magistrates Court should not be able to hear the details of your financial woes. What if the reason you can't pay is that you have been diagnosed with a life-threatening illness and you have to tell the council's Capita representative that in order to get them off your back when you have decided not to tell anyone other than your immediate partner?

The second concern is that Capita can't cope. This is clear from the final paragraph in red. If the Capita call centre isn't going to be able to cope then it should be enhanced so it can cope or the spread of summonses should be over a longer period. Here we have the tail wagging the dog. Are KPI being failed or are unanswered calls mysteriously not showing up in the KPI statistics?

The council have, of course, had two lots of phone troubles that they have tweeted about recently. Councillors are having email trouble so although they want to help you they can't if they don't receive your message.

What will happen is that someone, who has a life and other things to do, will phone and fail to get through, their email won't be handled in time and despite paying off in full they will get hit with a Liability Order for the costs of enforcement and then the dogs (otherwise known as Equita, the Capita owned bailiff) will be instructed.

So Capita's inability to cope turns into court approved extra debt which goes to Capita's own bailiff and they make lots of fees. Trebles all round as they say in Private Eye.

Did the cabinet councillors who so ardently supported the award of the contract to Capita get into this sort of detail? None of them will admit to having read the Contract in its entirety, and some not even at all, so it seems unlikely. Please bombard Conservative councillors with complaints about Capita in order that they start to realise what they have done. If you have a Labour councillor, or the sole Lib-Dem Jack Cohen you don't need to tell them what is wrong with the contract as they know and where powerless to stop it, just ask for help with your situation.

One day the Crapita nightmare will stop.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard