Bailiffs

The use of bailiffs to collect council tax has been in the news this week with the Citizens Advice service worried about the speed at which they are resorted to, charges being made for visits that never took place and councils not keeping any data about the actions of the bailiffs (in respect of whose behaviour they have a duty of care).

Mr Mustard usually gets involved with parking tickets before bailiffs are instructed and much prefers to keep it that way. He has however helped a few people and the following table gives you an idea of how the penalty for a simply traffic contravention (which may not even have taken place but any failure to follow the proper procedure means that you end up guilty) can increase to a disproportionate amount.

	Original	Value of	Bailiff	Bailiff	Extra paid	Notes
#	PCN £	Warrant £	Claim £		or claimed £
1	110	172	1,571	Newlyn	1,227	Car put on low loader to force payment
2	110	172				on the day the motorist returned from USA
3	130	202	431	Newlyn	229	visit stage (max 3)
4	110	172	389	Newlyn	217	visit stage (max 3)
5	110	172	185	Task	13	Initial letter
6	110	172	389	Newlyn	217	visit stage (max 3)
7	110	172	389	Newlyn	217	visit stage (max 3)
8	60	97	110	Task	13	Initial letter
9	110	172	623	Newlyn	451	visit stage (max 3) Overcharge
10	60	97	110	Task	13	Initial letter
11	110	172	185	Task	13	Initial letter
12	110	172	1,164	Newlyn	992	Vehicle taken to car pound
13	110	172	1,181	Newlyn	740	Vehicle taken to car pound
14	110	172
15	60	97
16	110	172	457	Newlyn	285	visit stage (max 3)

Amounts in black bold type were actually paid (before Mr Mustard was involved).

Amounts in blue were not paid and many of the PCN were subsequently cancelled due to illegal behaviour by the bailiff.

Amounts in red were not paid (save for a without prejudice settlement of £100 in the £740 case) and the vehicles were both recovered from the pound.

Although all the residents were in Barnet these cases includes ones for Camden and Harrow councils.

Bailiffs don't have to send the a warning letter before they visit but if they do it will cost you £11.20 + vat. If you owe the debt, pay it at this point.

After that you can be charged £28 + vat for debts under £100 (a £60 PCN will have become £97). For debts over £100 the bailiff charges should be 28% of the first £200 and 5.5% of the balance. Schedule 1 of The Enforcement of Road Traffic Debts (Certificated Bailiffs) Regulations 1993 states that aggregate costs and charges for attending to levy distress and for actually levying distress should not be more than 3 times the above amounts. On a £110 PCN, the debt due to the council rises to £172 so maximum charges should be £144.48 + vat (= £173.38).

In addition, Mr Mustard has seen clamping fees and vehicle removal fees and cancelled towing fees which is how you end up owing an extra £451 (or more). Once your car is removed an extra £30 a night or so will be added for storage.

It is clear that on file #9 that Newlyn were asking for more money than they were due to receive at a time when they had not yet (illegally) clamped the vehicle (which belonged to Motability).

Dealing with bailiffs who have your car in a clamp or a pound is very difficult. Please do what you can to avoid this situation by responding properly to all PCN paperwork.

The government are slowly getting round to bailiff legislation; not a moment too soon.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

The price of failure

As you know Mr Mustard asks quite a few questions as allowed for under the Freedom of Information legislation. He has the deputy leader's backing to do so ( being deputy leader is such a low profile bag carrying role that I probably need to tell you that the deputy leader is Cllr Daniel Thomas aka by bloggers as John Thomas or Doubting Thomas ) 

Members of the public are entitled to request information and I, of course, do not see anything wrong with that. Cllr D Thomas.

So here is a question and answer that Mr Mustard put in.

Dear Mr Mustard,

I write with our response to your request, received by us on August 30 2011, for the following information:

“Please provide a list of all payments made to GatenbySanderson since 1 April 2009 giving the date and the amount paid.

Please state the service provided for the fee paid and if the fee was for recruiting a person please indicate if the vacant post was filled by a candidate put forward by GatenbySanderson or if their work was fruitless and the post was filled by other means.” 

We have processed this request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA). The information should have been sent out to you within 20 working days. Please accept my apologies on behalf of London Borough of Barnet for the delay in responding.

Response

Doc. Date	Net Value	Inv No.	Member of Staff/Post
28/04/09	7,981.65	5641	Interim Consultant's Fees - G Cutts
28/04/09	7,857.45	5366	Interim Consultant's Fees - G Cutts
02/06/09	14,267.01	5942	Interim Consultant's Fees - G Cutts
27/11/09	2,016.30	7110	Assessment for Internal Directors - Assessment for Internal Candidates, profile and exercise materials and consultant expenses
27/11/09	9,225.00	6908	Advertising of Deputy Chief Executive & Director of Coporate Services, Print Advertising and Online Advertising - not filled
10/12/09	5,940.00	7188	Advertising of Director of Corporate Services - Second stage fees and expenses
10/12/09	4,841.62	7285	Assessment for Director of Corporate Services - Assessment for five candidates, profile and exercise materials and expenses.
12/01/10	21,800.00	6907	Advertising of Deputy Chief Executive Director of Coporate Services, First stage fees, Recruitment website development and expenses - not filled
02/02/10	3,960.00	7254	Advertising/recruitment of Director of Corporate Services which was filled, Invoice for Final stage fees and Expenses

Your rights

If you are unhappy with the handling of your request you can ask for an internal review. Please send such requests to our postal address or to foi@barnet.gov.uk and address them to the “FOI Officer”. Please also explain why you feel we have not correctly processed your request.

If, having exhausted our review procedure, you remain dissatisfied with the handling of your request or complaint, you will have a right to appeal to the Information Commissioner at: The Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF (telephone: 08456 306060 or 01625 545745; website www.ico.gov.uk). 

There is no charge for making an appeal.

Yours sincerely,

Antoinette Carter  
Governance Officer  
Corporate Governance Directorate  
London Borough of Barnet, North London Business Park, Oakleigh Road South, London N11 1NP
1 November 2011

A style point Barnet Council. Please don't put commas after the salutation and the sincerely, it is so old fashioned and the Barnet Council style guide says they interrupt the flow.

This would not have taken long to answer. Probably about an hour which is costed at £25. Nothing like the average of 9 hours which Cllr Thomas was waffling on about without having checked his facts first. 

Now look at the dates. Requested on 30 August 2011 and only answered on 1 November 2011. What were Barnet Council doing all that time? They were counting up how many requests Mr Mustard had made and blabbing to the press. Your time would have been better spent Barnet Council in actually answering the questions.

Now let us look at the answers. 

G Cutts is a new name to Mr Mustard as 2009 pre-dates his interest in the council. His more learned readers will contribute and tell us all if £30k in 3 months was money well spent. Probably replaced by Mr Savage Cuts.

So the rest of the money, more than £40,000 was spent on finding a Director of Corporate Services and on not finding a Deputy Chief Executive.

So the Director of Corporate Services who was appointed was Rod Matthews. He joined, according to his Linked-In profile, in December 2009 and left in January 2011. In the Accounts for 2010/11 he is shown as having been paid £80,000 for working and £58,923 to go home ( otherwise called Compensation for Loss of Office ). If he had been sent home within 12 months it could have been done for free. Mr Mustard does not know why he left the nest of vipers that is Barnet Council so soon but expects that someone will enlighten him.

So £20k or so was spent on not finding a Deputy Chief Executive and that is how we ended up with Andrew "Black Hole" ( copyright Mrs Angry ) Travers who is a consultant and not on Barnet Council's PAYE ( that is being avoided or evaded, never quite sure which one of those is legally ducking tax & which is breaking the law - expect that eventually the taxman will come knocking and Barnet residents will end up paying penalties for non-compliance )

copyright: Bank of England

It is shocking though isn't it that it costs £20,000 to not appoint a senior executive. That is more than some staff actually earn in a year. Recruitment agencies should not be rewarded for failure.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard