North Lincolnshire Council’s version

http://www.northlincs.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/4781BD91-BB76-4C70-8F12-9130925E5B5E/50672/LTBsharedservices.pdf

Or the North East Lincolnshire Council’s version

http://www.nelincs.gov.uk/committees/FunctionsPage.aspx?dsid=14407&action=GetFileFromDB

“NNDR (Business rates) is currently administered under a shared service agreement between NELC and NLC, based at Hewson House, Brigg. This arrangement will be merged into the wider shared service agreement for Local Taxation and Benefits.”

“This option would proceed with the implementation of shared services in both Councils for housing and council tax benefits administration, revenues collection (Ctax and NNDR), Sundry Debts (NELC only) and those functions which are shared across all of the service e.g. systems control, development, and scanning & indexing etc.”

Does Council Tax recovery come “under revenues collection”? If so the previous post seriously needs addressing.

The Weasels at the council have taken one step too far here. All I can say is they must really be confident of their impunity to prosecution.

There are potential savings of £1.27-million for sharing services between North and North-East Lincolnshire councils over the following 4 years, mostly through reducing staff by 21.4 posts across both councils.

This is where the Weasels are insulting the intelligence of the public.

The council are not permitted to make a profit out of residents through penalties associated with Council Tax recovery. Despite this they raise penalty fees and rearranged how they are applied in order to collect a forecasted additional £752,000 for the same period.

This was listed in their budget proposals under “Income Generation”. Clearly they are acting outside of the law by doing this, but who is monitoring the council? How can aggrieved residents ensure the council don’t flout the law?

These Weasels are systematically shafting both residents and their staff. In a nut-shell they are taking measures to reduce costs of Council Tax recovery and correspondingly increasing the costs incurred by those residents receiving penalties.

Whose job is it to stop them?

The council recently hiked up the penalty they charge residents for late payment of council tax instalments.

This was done to raise a forecasted income of £752,000 over the next 4 years. The council are not allowed to profit from these charges and they should only cover the cost of recovery. Evidently they have done this solely to create extra revenue.

Look under “Income Generation”

http://www.nelincs.gov.uk/committees/FunctionsPage.aspx?dsid=13241&action=GetFileFromDB

If the council are axing 21 jobs in revenue and benefits services, the logical change in the penalty fee would be a reduction wouldn’t it?

The recovery costs will be reduced so the council is shafting both their staff and resident here, they are out of control.

COUNCIL CAUGHT-OUT UNLAWFULLY RAISING ADDITIONAL £752,000 FROM COUNCIL TAX PENALTIES

Council take advantage of struggling households and court system to raise a forecasted £188,000 extra each year from unlawful penalty fees.

North East Lincolnshire Council failed, or made little attempt to cover their tracks in their latest blatant disregard for legislation set out in the Council Tax (Administration and Enforcement) Regulations.

A recent hike takes the now ‘single’ £70 penalty fee to 23% above that of the previously combined charges. Or, when compared with 2001 levels, 65% higher.

It’s not for the sake of convenience that Summons and Liability Order penalties are now combined into one. There has been a gradual but obvious intent to increase profits by hiking up these fees, but less obvious is the cunning way the council has proportioned costs to the summons and liability order.

Increasingly more weight has been given to the summons penalty, until eventually the liability order fee – previously incurred later in the recovery process, has become consolidated into just the one fee. The obvious merits – at least for the council’s profits anyway – is that more households will be caught out by this much higher penalty, and sooner.

This is not only devious but blatantly contravenes the statutory instrument, SI 1992/613, Regulation 34(5)(b) which in summary states that on receiving a summons, the amount outstanding plus the costs reasonably incurred by the authority (summons fee only) is paid to the authority, it shall accept the amount and the liability order not be proceeded with.

The council pay fees to the court for using their facilities, this makes up a proportion of the now defunct or hidden liability order fee paid by ‘caught out residents’. Clearly, by consolidating these fees, residents are incurring court costs, for which, because of settlement prior to the court hearing they are not liable, but are forced to pay.

Again SI 1992/613, but this time Regulation 34(6) and (7)(b), which in summary state, if, on receiving a summons, the amount has not been paid, the amount outstanding plus costs reasonably incurred by the authority for obtaining the liability order shall be payable.

In essence, the council can not profit from recovery, hence “costs reasonably incurred”, but plainly this is exactly what the authority are doing by charging hidden liability order fees when in fact, residents have in many instances not had a court order made against them………

http://i1205.photobucket.com/albums/bb433/gcgent/Councilcaught-outunlawfullyraisingpenalties1.jpg
http://i1205.photobucket.com/albums/bb433/gcgent/Councilcaught-outunlawfullyraisingpenalties2.jpg

From the Sunday Telegraph:

[url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/8814542/We-shouldnt-let-our-councils-cheat-us-out-of-25-billion-a-year.html]We shouldn’t let our councils cheat us out of £25 billion a year[/url]

Councils now make as much money out of extra charges as they do from the council tax.

“We froze council tax this year,” boasted David Cameron in his speech last Wednesday, “and we are going to freeze it again next year, too.” But by talking only of council tax, what Mr Cameron managed to hide from us is what has become one of the best-kept secrets of British politics. This is the fact that our bloated local authorities, with so many senior officials paid more than the Prime Minister, have increasingly found alternative sources of income that are now earning them as much as they get from council tax.

There was a time, 40 years ago, when the most obvious source of council revenue was the rates, topped up by grants from central government – in return for which we could expect all the services that councils provided. But, largely below the radar, councils have discovered all sorts of ways in which they can take money off us, by levying charges, fees and penalties – some of which are actually illegal – for countless things that used to be free, or at least very much cheaper.

We have become familiar, for instance, with the practice whereby we must now pay for planning applications, anything from £150 for a garden shed to £250,000 for a large housing estate. We all know about the cost of parking fees and penalties, which earn councils £2 billion a year. And businesses must now pay billions to have their waste collected.

What most of us are less familiar with is the proliferation of new licensing charges for everything from pet shops to car boot sales, from riding establishments to “sex establishments” (up to £9,935, plus a yearly renewal fee of £5,000). Pubs that used to pay a yearly £10 to the local magistrates for their licence must now pay up to £1,905 to the council (plus £23.50 to notify the town hall if the landlord dies). Big pop festivals must pay £64,000 for a licence, even before they pay hundreds of thousands more to hire the police to provide security.

In 2007, the Lyons report on local government found that more than a quarter of councils were already earning more from such charges than they were from council tax. This has now risen to the point where “sales, fees, charges” and “other income” now yield some £25 billion a year, much the same as council tax.

Most of these alternative sources of revenue are sanctioned by central government, but in some instances the “dash for cash” has led councils into activities that are outside the law. Two weeks ago, I reported how many councils have outsourced their collection of unpaid council tax to private firms of bailiffs, who then charge much more than the law allows for practices such as “phantom visits” – merely pushing letters through doors – which both the Government and the police state are criminal offences under the 2006 Fraud Act. This followed my colleague Richard North becoming the victim of such illegal charges after paying his council tax in full to Bradford council, which set him off on an investigation that has brought to light just how many local authorities are abusing the law by grossly overcharging council tax debtors for the issuing of summonses and liability orders.

Under the Council Tax (Administration and Enforcement) Regulations 1992, councils are only permitted to impose “costs reasonably incurred” for the issuing of these orders, which must also under the law be charged for separately, But, as one council frankly admits, the cost of issuing a reminder notice, which precedes them, can be as little as £1.22. Bradford council, however, charges £80 for issuing the two further documents, which, using the same computerised process, involve little more work than sending out the reminder. Many other councils impose, quite illegally, a combined charge of up to £122 for issuing both documents – even though, if the debtor pays in full on receiving the summons, the liability order is not necessary.

A succession of exchanges with Bradford council shows that last year, it issued 48,577 summonses to more than one in four of all the homes in the city. With 32,429 liability orders, this earned the council £3.33 million, which will have helped towards paying the £1.8 million claimed by Bradford’s councillors in expenses, including nearly £50,000 for the council leader.

North-East Lincolnshire council, by charging £70 for the summons and liability order combined, last year raised its income from “debt recovery” by 22 per cent, to £575,000. This was still not enough to pay for the five council officials who now earn more than the £142,000 received by the Prime Minister – such as the £184,667 received by the CEO, which includes a pension contribution of £31,610, more than most council tax payers earn.

Examples from across the country suggest that the sum raised by councils in this way, going way beyond what is permitted by the law – and levied from some of the poorest homes in the country – could be as much as £300 million a year, Now, at last, we may begin to understand how these “lords of the town halls” can afford to award themselves salaries that make them some of the highest paid people in Britain today.

Users can slice and dice the Council’s data, compare it to spend by other Councils and sort the data by value of spend, as well as drill through to the underlying transactions.

BIOLAP is a BI Consultancy practice specialising in Planning, Analysis and Reporting solutions.

I have first hand experience of this council’s instinctive lying, obstruction and covering-up of serious accusations of fraud and corruption.

The council’s attempt of deterring the victim, by threatening that all staff refuse to communicate appears even more pathetic when you realise it is standard practice after realising their attempts to fob-off the complainant have failed.

Their threats of legal action are equally pathetic. The council know that their crimes, which would be inevitably uncovered in a hearing, would attract far more Judge’s attention than any defamation proceedings.

and was it reported in the ET. I dont think so.

On the forum, half the panel is obscured by the “Information about your counci” on the right, so I can only read the left hand side of it.

Am I doing something wrong?