Post edited 9:07 pm – November 23, 2011 by Polystyrene anchor

Hi CC,

It seems to me like they're playing some game here by not letting on what really happened. Or, they're evading the issues in the hope they will just go away.

Either way they're implying that I've incorrectly given details to my bank when instructing payments to be made for my council tax.

What I don't understand is  – if a reference number has mistakenly been filled in – how the number just happened to be a valid account reference number? These are 10 figure reference numbers, it would need to be one hell of a coincidence for this to occur wouldn't it?

They don't mention how long it took them to question the misplaced payments and when they were transferred to the suspense account. Though, regardless of when this was exactly, they had managed to send out threatening letters, take court action and appoint bailiffs to collect a debt that didn't exist, before anything twigged.

How could this have happened?

REPLY TO COUNCILS CHIEF EXECUTIVE'S FINAL STAGE FORMAL COMPLAINT

Chief Executive

Municipal Offices

Town Hall Square

Dear CEO

Re: Complaint: NEL/xxxxxx/12 Council tax 550xxxxxxx

In true time honoured tradition the council has again managed to sign off, across-the-board as unfounded, a series of valid criticisms raised through their seemingly pointless formal complaints procedure. Why though, am I not surprised this complaint process turned out to be a sham? I suppose when the organisation is headed by a corporate climber with the honesty of a used car salesman and morals of an alley cat what would you expect?

Wouldn’t public relations be your expertise as chief executive and your role within the company be promoting the image of the council, i.e, bullshitting the press or doing the same in TV appearances? The logical question that follows then would be why you have been let loose with an undertaking requiring judgment and impartiality.

Your final stage response has been consistent with the initial stage conducted by the Debt Recovery Manager ___ ___, in being an almost word for word account which was an all-out denial that the council and its crooked firm of bailiffs are at fault.

Stage two, conducted by the council’s court enforcement manager ___ ___, was consistent with his last attempt to tackle one of these complaints – he must have been assigned it for the purpose of gaining experience in this field.

I can therefore conclude no further improvement has been made in ‘this attempt’, to the way previous complaints have been handled where Rossendales have been at its heart.

The mishandling of these complaints reveals just how prevalent corruption is within North East Lincolnshire council. It is enough that residents suffer the violation of criminal enforcement firms used by the council, but for the authority – to go unregulated in its biased handling of these grievances – is a further kick in the teeth.

1. Account being passed to bailiffs

Your response to item one “Account being passed to bailiffs”: Throughout all stages of the complaint, this has never been addressed. The council’s revenues and benefits department has been grossly negligent in failing to learn lessons from previously raised issues regarding Rossendales acting for NELC, where it was revealed they resorted to unlawful practices while attempting to collect alleged council tax debt.

The point was completely missed at stage one with the attention being diverted from the actual complaint about NELC’s appointment of crooked enforcement firm Rossendales. ___ ___ took it upon herself to introduce a completely irrelevant issue and gave some smug lecture in how by communicating with the council about my Council Tax arrears, my account could have been avoided being passed to Rossendales.

Despite my council tax payments in fact being up to date, the council’s Debt Recovery Manager went on to give an ultimatum – also irrelevant to the complaint – which warned bailiff action would resume, if I failed to “contact them regarding payment or send evidence to the council showing proof of payment.”

If you had bothered to take your responsibilities seriously and responded to my complaint accordingly, you would not have made such idiotic references to stage one or the equally idiotic response of ____ ____’s stage two effort regarding my account being passed to bailiffs.

A letter from the council dated 9 June 2011 had already threatened that if I failed to clear my arrears within 14 days the matter would be referred to the council’s appointed bailiffs.

Another letter of 27 July 2011 requested details of the dates and amounts I had paid funds to the council. The letter was in connection with a statement I made at the Mickey Mouse Magistrates’ court hearing of 2 June 2011 where I clearly explained that I had paid the disputed Council Tax through internet banking. This was in addition to a letter I sent dated 21 April 2011 requesting the council stop sending their automated threatening letters as I had in fact paid – in advance of the due-by date – all I owed to the council.

There is something profoundly wrong with a council’s recovery department that invokes court action for literally thousands of residents. 3,359 householders receiving council tax summonses accounted for just one court hearing scheduled at 2pm on 2 June 2011 at Grimsby’s Magistrates’ court. This makes up only one of typically several bogus court hearings conducted throughout the year which sees on average half a million pounds taken from NEL residents.

Through the council’s own admission the local authority has in the last 5 years obtained hundreds of liability orders through the Magistrates’ court for debt outstanding to the council of less then £15. For debt outstanding under £100 more than six and a half thousand liability orders for only 1p have even been sought.

This is clearly an indication that neither the Magistrates’ court nor the council’s recovery department is functioning lawfully; however, the additional revenue obtained from caught out residents must suit both parties.

The council – evidently without need to question it – has complete confidence in its automated system, which puts forward details of who should be pursued through the court. The arrangement is complimented by the court, whose negligence leads to it accepting without question the word of the council, despite case law that states "a decision by magistrates whether to issue a summons pursuant to information laid involves the exercise of a judicial function, and is not merely administrative."

Statistics relating to the trivially small outstanding balances sought through the court provides overwhelming evidence that the council does not meet its obligation which requires council’s recovery staff to check the accuracy of all accounts before processing them to the enforcement stage.

Incidentally, I had not defaulted on my council tax payments; I had paid in accordance with Part 5 and Schedule 1 of the Council Tax (Administration and Enforcement) Regulations 1992 (As amended). I should not have received threatening letters, been taken to court, incurred summons costs, or had my account sent to Rossendale’s bailiffs and incurred their fees.

August 18 was the first dealing I had with Rossendales at which time I made it clear to both the bailiff and the council’s Income & Collection Manager that I would not be communicating with any employee representing the criminal enforcement firm Rossendales. The meeting which followed with the Income & Collection Manager would be the other occasion that you and others involved in this complaints process have referred to how my account could have been avoided being passed to Rossendales.

It was in this meeting and also my stage 2 letter that I stated I would take pleasure in refusing to assist the council locate my payments; I had after all paid in accordance with the Council Tax Regulations.

The council had up to that point threatened me, attempted to defraud me through Rossendales on several occasions, twice taken unnecessarily court action for alleged non-payment of council tax, lied, been obstructive, wasted endless months of my time in disputes not least in its corrupt complaints process, exposed me to the horrifying corruption that exists within councils which has in turn exposed me to the equally horrifying Police corruption and that which exists in supposedly independent organisations like the Citizens Advice Bureau, Local Government Ombudsman and Information Commissioners Office.

If you still have cause to wonder why I decided they get on with it without my assistance, then I seriously question what effect the obscene publicly funded salary has on your soundness of mind.

All of this is irrelevant to my original complaint because although it dealt with my account being passed to bailiffs, it has been taken largely out of context as my complaint clearly emphasised the objection to the council allocating my case to a firm of bailiffs which systematically resorts to illegal methods of enforcement and had in fact previously attempted to defraud me on several occasions.

A point worth bringing to your attention is that made by the council’s court enforcement manager in his stage 2 response in which he stated “It is our decision which bailiff company we instruct.” I just hope by this he wasn’t implying that the council are so arrogant they would use a notoriously criminal enforcement firm in preference to one which acted within the law to effect a greater degree of intimidation.

2. The council's income and collection manager

All I can say is you've got more front than Brighton, Blackpool and Dolly Parton put together. You know – as do various Income & Payments Service staff members familiar with this debacle – why the council’s Income & Collection Manager accompanied the Rossendale’s bailiff on his visit to my home.

The supervision of the bailiff was to prevent a repeat performance where a Rossendale’s bailiff attempted to defraud me by charging for visits to my home he did not make.

In debt enforcement circles this is known as a “phantom visit” and is one of the “tricks of the trade” employed by NELC’s appointed bailiff firm Rossendales to defraud residents. The council continually denies this practice goes on and its reaction to the highlighted problem comes in the form of – as is so often the case – meaningless generic responses like “I can advise you that Rossendale's fees are set by statute and that they are governed by National Standards for Enforcement Agents”, or “the council’s use of bailiffs and collection agencies is closely managed through appropriate and robust governance by the departments within the council who employ their services” or “Rossendales have acted within government guides lines and followed legislation correctly when setting fees.” This is so lame and demonstrates that the council has no interest in addressing the complaint, much preferring the cop-out option and concentrating their attention on protecting its reputation.

Rossendale’s malpractice has been widely publicised in the press and on TV. Your refusal to acknowledge the failings of your appointed bailiff must be getting embarrassing for the authority and clearly are running out of excuses. This leaves me to say once more that you can’t say I haven’t warned you that North East Lincolnshire Council has been informed about Rossendale’s involvement in criminal activity.

I note you have been selective in addressing issues you are comfortable with. I recall making the observation that bailiffs do in fact come at a cost to the council, particularly as it is necessary for council staff to supervise them. This contradicts local authorities’ argument for their use which is that bailiff companies come at no cost to the council as they collect fees direct from the debtor.

On a similar point, I’d argue there is significant cost to the council attributable to the time taken in resolving the thousands of disputes which must originate from the council’s appointed bailiff’ malpractice.

This further goes to show that the council are unable or unwilling to address any issue unless it conveniently falls into some rigid category with an accompanying one fits-all generic solution, deliverable as a stand alone or slightly adapted response.

3. National standards for enforcement agents

You stated in your response:

“It is your opinion that the "Notice of bailiffs attendance" does not comply with National standards for enforcement agents.

This point has already been answered in some detail as part of our stage one response, which makes it clear that these are guidelines only. These can be viewed on the following web page and includes the following statement "This national guidance does not replace local agreements, existing agency codes of practice or legislation".

Perhaps you should have taken the time to assess this complaint yourself rather than reiterate the Debt Recovery Manager’s response given in stage 1.

I am in fact familiar with the National standard’s code of practice. This, I would have thought obvious as I’ve already quoted relevant guidance from the code. What I assume you didn’t bank on was that I might refresh myself with its contents, especially as you had quoted from the code yourself to reinforce a decision not to uphold the complaint.

It appears you have quoted out of context; selecting craftily only half of the following paragraph –that which advantages the council’s argument.

“This national guidance does not replace local agreements, existing agency codes of practice or legislation; rather it sets out what the Department, those in the industry and some major users regard as minimum standards.”

It‘s clear why you included the incomplete statement and further demonstrates to what depths you will sink, and your commitment to rule out at all cost, accusations of maladministration. Your part quoted section, when read in full context, discredits the council’s defense of Rossendales in its failure to comply with the code. Implying, as I’m sure you are doing, that local agreements take precedence over the National standard’s code is misleading, as it in fact states, that the guidelines should be regarded “as minimum standards.”

You have as did ____ ____ in his stage 2 response, failed to address or add comment to the point made which exposed employees of North East Lincolnshire council as dishonest, two-faced, devious weasels. To pride itself as they do at every opportunity, that Rossendales "are governed by the National Standard for Enforcement Agents", and for the council to then state “these are guidelines and not regulations” as a “get-out” for not following them, defies belief.

This is testament that the council’s formal complaint process is merely an exercise in giving complainants the brush-off and has no other objective than to determine any grievances as unfounded. Investigating itself is unlikely to be executed in a fair and unbiased way which can only lead to the council seeking to protect itself from reputational risk or legal challenge. Therefore I’d say there’s a desperate need for these complaints to be conducted independently.

4. Prevention of accounts being passed to

Rosendale's by contacting the council

I will be submitting an additional formal complaint now the council has finally admitted I had in fact paid my Council Tax instalments in the lead up to my prosecution for non-payment in the Magistrates’ court.

This of course is a separate issue but will likely implicate the court and the Information Commissioners Office, just in case you are not already aware of the other parties who have also contributed to this fiasco.

Consequently your observation has no validity where you state “As the debt on your account was in the order of £940.91 it was correctly progressed for recovery.”

It’s more than likely the council was aware that I had not defaulted on my council tax well before 29 September 2011 – the date I received a letter from Rossendales informing me that my account with them had ”been closed, at North East Lincolnshire Councils request.” However, this didn’t stop ____ ____ responding on 6 October 2011 to my stage 2 complaint with no acknowledgement they had discovered my payments.

You are clearly oblivious to the seriousness of the council’s cavalier approach in squeezing additional revenue from a significant proportion of council tax paying citizens. This makes the authority no better than the criminal bailiff firm that goes on to defraud residents as a consequence of irresponsible court action.

If the data I quoted from the council’s Freedom of Information response was presented correctly then your explanation for why trivially small debts can be referred to the court after checking has been carried out, doesn’t hold water.

1. Total Liability Orders issued on Ctax accounts with initial debt under £100.00 (Includes under £10.00)

Total LO's

2006/07 – 1205

2007/08 – 1255

2008/09 – 1374

2009/10 – 1304

2010/11 – 1442

2. Total Liability Orders issued on Ctax accounts with initial debt under £10.00

Year Total LO's

2006/07 – 20

2007/08 – 24

2008/09 – 18

2009/10 – 7

2010/11 – 13

Note: A total of 3,528 Liability Orders were issued for initial debt of £50 or less.

You stated:

“The council's collection team checks the accuracy of all accounts before passing them to the enforcement stage. Accounts are only progressed to enforcement for amounts over £50. If payments are made after the account has been sent to the court to request a liability order, the final balance that the order is issued for may be less.

You introduce Freedom of information (FOI) data relating to the small levels of debt collected through Liability Orders. The above statement explains how small debts of this nature can be referred after checking has been carried out. We have noted your concerns regarding these issues.”

Clearly the FOI response was worded such that the Liability Order amounts, in fact, correspond to the “initial debt”. This by all logical reasoning would be the figure that should have been checked by the council’s collection team prior to them being passed for enforcement. If the council’s supplied data is correct then 3,528 Liability Orders were passed to the enforcement stage for the relevant period which relate to an outstanding debt of £50 or less.

Let’s assume the data does correspond to the amounts outstanding at the time Magistrates issued the Liability Orders. Even then both HMCTS and the councils’ Court Enforcement Manager(s) have been negligent for allowing residents to be prosecuted for what clearly does not present itself as non-payment.

I’m told the cost of enforcing council tax exceeds the revenue generated in penalties. I can’t, no matter how imaginatively I approach the concept, believe that to be true. However, if the council truthfully believes this unbalance exists, why are no steps being taken to reduce the thousands of cases passed for enforcement relating to accounts which obviously do not pose any risk of default?

I’ll stick with my strongly held belief that the council does make very hefty profits from this irresponsible exploitation of “The Law” and a substantial reduction in these numbers would not in fact be welcomed by the council, HMCTS or the government.

Just a little arrogant don’t you think, that you should state:

“As previously stated in your stage two response it is the council's decision to instruct whichever bailiff's they wish and as a council we currently use Rosendale's for all council tax debt recovery.”

     especially as it is widely publicised that this company have more than a little difficulty keeping their operations within the law.

5. Bailiff contact

Again you have not bothered to put any of your own input into the response, preferring the lazier option of reiterating the opinions given in stages I and 2.

You really should – and this also applies to your Income & Collection department staff – find out what you are talking about before making these statements.

The position with regards the office number has already been explained with no apparent evidence that it had even registered. To labour the point, I made it clear that in a similar way to how the council operates; Rossendale’s office staff dealing with bailiff queries will have been instructed to be as obstructive as possible. In council tradition, staff manning phones at Rossendale’s offices will not offer any assistance and will instruct callers to contact the bailiff.

6. Council's response not relevant to complaint

You have taken the opportunity to justify what is effectively another criminal act. In contrast to abetting Rossendales to defraud residents through their enforcement practices, the issue here is unlawfully increasing penalties associated with council tax recovery to plug a hole in their budget as appose to meeting actual recovery costs.

There is overwhelming evidence that the council have pulled this stunt before, but this time it has pushed its luck just one step to far by flouting – in two instances – the very regulations they in fact call upon to prosecute residents.

The authority has flouted the Council Tax (Administration and Enforcement) Regulations by raising income through penalties for purposes other than funding enforcement costs. It has also breached them by unifying the existing summons and liability order fees into one item; a scheming maneuver which will net far more income than the suggested 23% increase in overall penalties.

North East Lincolnshire Council has on its website several documents listing proposed savings, intended to plug the hole in the council’s finances. As an example “Budget Appendix 6 – OBC's.pdf” proposes to "Increase summons cost" under a heading “income generation”.

The document explains how projected savings of £188,000 for each of the following 4 years is possible. In other words the council has forecasted an additional £752,000 can be obtained from struggling households caught out by late council tax payments in this period, if it combined the existing summons and liability order fees into one item and increase the overall penalty charge by 23%, which it did in April 2011.

Such fees are to cover costs incurred by the Council Tax recovery process, not constitute savings by way of income generation.

It is stated in Regulation 34 of the Council Tax (Administration and Enforcement) Regulations – (5)(b) for costs relating to Summonses, and (7)(b) for Liability Orders – that the taxpayer incurring these penalties should be the sum of an amount equal to the costs reasonably incurred by the authority/applicant. It doesn’t state that these penalties can be increased to create an additional revenue stream.

In essence, the council can not profit from recovery, hence “costs reasonably incurred”, but plainly this is exactly what the authority are doing, not least by the unjustified hike. Unifying the summons and liability order charges means that the procedure set out in Regulation 34 for applying for a liability order is longer followed by the authority.

The council should be charging separately at the summons and liability order stages. The defunct liability order fee which is now incorporated in the single penalty is now incurred prematurely by all residents at stage one. This unlawful cost will potentially be incurred by many not even having a court order made against them.

It’s bizarre that local authorities are preoccupied with rooting out benefit and council tax fraud and actively encourage anyone suspecting instances of this to report it to the council; they even have dedicated fraud hotline telephone numbers for this purpose.

Ironically, the council is defrauding council taxpayers to a far greater degree than those you wish to parade on the front pages of the press. In fact you as CEO of the council and the officers responsible for implementing these penalties should be doing 10 year stretches for the £millions unlawfully obtained from struggling council tax payers.

You go on and account for the costs, associated with the recovery process. You compare penalty fees with national averages for unitary authorities and neighbouring councils which come out favourably for NELC. This is dodging the issue of how these costs are determined.

Incidentally I notice you are at it again with your selective quoting. It may be that our neighbouring council's, Hull and East Riding charge £80, (unlawfully in one penalty) but if you had quoted North Lincolnshire council this wouldn’t have had the impact you were after, as they charge £65 total for summonses and liability orders, with the added bonus that they conform to the council tax regulations that state fees should be incurred in two stages, £55 and £10 for that authority.

You have reinforced the commonly held view that the setting of fees are not based on actual costs but on what other authorities charge or what the council thinks it can get away with. It is too convenient for a council to justify raising cash to plug a hole in its finances or compensate for council made blunders, just because it is cheaper than another.

The list you have supplied to account for recovery costs doesn’t really do it:

• the cost for the use of the court

• the wages of the staff employed to collect Council Tax and Business Rates

• ICT costs

• postage

The only things given away in this list are:

1. An admission that the Magistrates’ court hearing is bogus as you suggest the court is hired by the council; my understanding of a court case is one where the court conducts the hearing, not those who bring about the complaint to the court.

2. The council aims to cover the entire cost of administrating its council tax and business rate operations with income obtained from council tax payers caught out with these penalties.

3. The council’s computer systems are in continual need of replacement.

A more comprehensive attempt to account for recovery costs was made as per the following:

The annual budget for all activity associated with recovery of Council Tax and Business rates amounts to approximately £1.1 million.

2011/12 Revenues budget (debt recovery)

 

A0184 Control & Monitoring

Total revenue expenditure budget – £507,000

(£) recharged income – £0

Percentage recovery work – 20%

Cost attributable CT recovery – £101,400

 

A0187 Debt Collection

Total revenue expenditure budget – £738,500

(£) recharged income – (£121,800)*

Percentage recovery work – 100%

Cost attributable CT recovery – £616,700

 

A0191 Council Tax

Total revenue expenditure budget – £826,900

(£) recharged income – £0

Percentage recovery work – 50%

Cost attributable CT recovery – £413,450

 

Total £1,131,550

*cost of sundry debt collection recharged to other directorates

You can see this doesn’t represent an itemised breakdown providing evidence that the cost of court action taken against each resident would total £70.

Obvious inconsistencies can be spotted immediately and point to these figures, being supplied with the intention of confusing anyone trying to decipher them. Firstly it states that the figures specifically relate to all activity associated with recovery of Council Tax and Business rates. It goes on and describes the 2011/12 Revenues budget figures as more generally "debt recovery". Finally it states that the figures are attributable only to council tax recovery.

It is unclear what recovery these figures actually represent. It's unclear if VAT paid to bailiff companies, which can be reclaimed make up any of these figures.

There is no explanation why £616,700 is attributable to debt collection when no payment is supposedly made to bailiff companies by the council.

There is nothing explaining why 20% and 50% represent the proportion of costs attributable to recovery with the categories, 'Control and Monitoring' and 'Council Tax', or for that matter the significance of these categories with regards their budgets.

We seem to be a long way from getting the true costs incurred by the authority for the recovery of council tax and business rates.

There have been developments regarding my council tax account since your response, i.e. the council has admitted my payments where in fact paid in accordance with the council tax regulations. This has many implications, for example the council should not have summoned me to the court, the court should not have granted a liability order, the council should not have instructed Rossendales to collect a non-debt etc etc. It will therefore be necessary to submit another formal complaint to establish how it was possible that events could have escalated to these levels.

Yours sincerely

P. Anchor

I've had a read through the links to your FOI requests. The phrase "blood out of a stone" comes instantly to mind. I suppose it just goes to show they have a lot to hide.

They don't seem to want to tackle the recovery costs. I've seen several requests to various councils regarding these and none I've seen have made any credible attempt to justify them, I doubt any could. Some give the game away though by covering the entire cost of council tax and business rate collections with the revenue from penalty fees, this is not what the Council Tax (Administration And Enforcement) Regulations say is allowed.

Another respondant to my site emailed me over a year ago and suggested i should look at corprate events paid for by rossendlaes ( jollys ).  I have been trying to work out how to asked for who paid for all corprate functions to keep it within the costs limits.  I am told the best period to ask about is 2005-2009. 

I'd be interested to see some answers for this.

Post edited 3:59 pm – December 13, 2011 by Polystyrene anchor

OK, ON WITH THE NEXT FORMAL COMPLAINT TO THE COUNCIL

North East Lincolnshire Council

Finance Department

Civic Offices Knoll Street

13/12/11

Dear Sir/Madam

Re: Council tax Ref: 550xxxxxxx – Formal Complaint

In their obsession to extort at least half a million pounds each year from council tax paying residents, North East Lincolnshire council along with its partner, “Grimsby Magistrates’ court” have negligently dragged me into being one of their greedy statistics.

I had paid in accordance with Part 5 and Schedule 1 of the Council Tax (Administration and Enforcement) Regulations 1992 (As amended). However, despite never defaulting on my council tax payments, I received in the first instance threatening letters. In a letter dated 21 April 2011, I asked if the council would desist from harassing me with its computer generated threats and advised I had paid in excess of the required instalment amount and well before it was due. There was no response to this and the council proceeded to take court action.

I stated at the court hearing that my council tax payments were up to date and I had not defaulted. However, the Magistrate preferred to take the word of the council’s court enforcement manager, a less than honest character which in my opinion is not untypical for the council.

This was only one of typically several bogus court hearings conducted annually which sees on average half a million pounds taken from NEL residents. 3,359 was the number representing residents who were summoned to this particular court hearing alone. There is something profoundly wrong with a council’s recovery department that invokes court action for this many residents.

The council has admitted that, in the last 5 years, it has obtained hundreds of liability orders through the Magistrates’ court for council tax debt outstanding to the council of less then £15. For debt outstanding under £100, more than six and a half thousand, and liability orders for only 1p have even been sought.

This clearly indicates that neither the Magistrates’ court nor the council’s recovery department is functioning lawfully; however, the additional revenue obtained from caught out residents must suit both parties.

I refer to Lord Widgery C.J's case law "Regina v. Brentford Justices, Ex parte Catlin" which is in my opinion cause to believe that issuing these Summonses 'en mass' would amount to very serious maladministration as can be seen from the following.

Lord Widgery's comments:

"….It must however be remembered that before a summons or warrant is issued the information must be laid before a magistrate and he must go through the judicial exercise of deciding whether a summons or warrant ought to be issued or not. If a magistrate authorises the issue of a summons without having applied his mind to the information then he is guilty of dereliction of duty and if in any particular justices' clerk's office a practice goes on of summonses being issued without information being laid before the magistrate at all, then a very serious instance of maladministration arises which should have the attention of the Authorities without delay…."

"A decision by Magistrates whether to issue a summons pursuant to information laid involves the exercise of a judicial function, and is not merely administrative…."

Given that the number of these summonses run into several hundred or even thousand at any given hearing, and that the council send out their own, it’s reasonable to suspect very serious instances of maladministration as those mentioned above in Lord Widgery’s comments.

The Income and Collections department must have discovered some monumental error on its part which it will now be trying to cover-up as there has been no mention or demand for the £70 Summons penalty or the £24.50 bailiff fee I incurred because of its negligence.

Up until the time the Income and Collections department finally acknowledged they had located my payments, I had already paid to the council £696.91 of my current year’s council tax liability in accordance with the Council Tax (Administration and Enforcement) Regulations 1992.

How could have all this money paid to the council gone unnoticed?

Maybe the absence of any care and attention is the essential non-ingredient to ensure revenue from taking residents to court remains on target for the collections team. Maybe it's the department’s policy not to be too diligent.

I’m told “the council's collection team checks the accuracy of all accounts before passing them to the enforcement stage” and “accounts are only progressed to enforcement for amounts over £50.”

I’m also told that “if payments are made after the account has been sent to the court to request a liability order, the final balance that the order is issued for may be less.”

I’ve also been advised that the debt on my account was in the order of £940.91 so was correctly progressed for recovery. This was clearly untrue.

The following makes up part of what is the council’s response to a Freedom of Information request which if presented correctly then the explanation for why debts of less than £50 can be referred to the court after checking has been carried out, doesn’t hold water.

1. Total Liability Orders issued on Ctax accounts with initial debt under £100.00 (Includes under £10.00)

Total LO's

2006/07 – 1205

2007/08 – 1255

2008/09 – 1374

2009/10 – 1304

2010/11 – 1442

Note: A total of 3,528 Liability Orders were issued for initial debt of £50 or less.

Clearly the FOI response was worded such that the Liability Order amounts, in fact, correspond to the “initial debt”. This by all logical reasoning would be the figure that should have been checked by the council’s collection team prior to them being passed for enforcement. If the council’s supplied data is correct then 3,528 Liability Orders were passed to the enforcement stage for the relevant period which relate to an outstanding debt of £50 or less.

Even if the council have misworded their response and the data does correspond to the amounts outstanding at the time Magistrates issued the Liability Orders. Even then both HMCTS and the councils’ Court Enforcement Manager(s) have been negligent for allowing these residents to be prosecuted for what clearly does not present itself as non-payment.

I’m told the cost of enforcing council tax exceeds the revenue generated in penalties. I can’t, no matter how imaginatively I approach the concept, believe that to be true. However, if the council truthfully believes this unbalance exists, why are no steps being taken to reduce the thousands of cases passed for enforcement relating to accounts which obviously do not pose any risk of default?

So, I’ve outlined my grievances regarding this latest fiasco caused by the authority’s haphazard enforcement of council tax and hope North East Lincolnshire council will address them and come up with some meaningful answers.

More specifically though, I need to know where I stand regarding the £70 Summons penalty and the £24.50 bailiff fee I have incurred. Up to now the council is acting as though nothing has occurred, though in fact what it has done amounts to maladministration and abuse.

Of course I expect a sum offered from which to negotiate a final compensatory settlement for suffering council’s actions and it instructing criminal enforcement firm Rossendales to collect a nonexistent debt. Additionally I would like to see awarded, compensation to other residents who have also been affected by similar maladministration.

Lastly, I have been taken to court for council tax debt I don’t have, been branded a liar by the Magistrates, been exposed to the council’s bailiffs for a debt that doesn’t exist, encountered threats, lies, attempted fraud, corruption and obstruction at the hands of North East Lincolnshire council, and I feel it is unreasonable, in a democratic society, that a citizen should have to deal with an organisation operating this way.

For this reason and because of the nightmare I have experienced over recent years due to the council’s incompetence, I request that starting from next year my Council Tax account be no longer administered by NELC and arrangement be made for an alternative method for it to be collected.

Yours sincerely

P. Anchor.

Post edited 10:30 am – December 19, 2011 by Polystyrene anchor

NORTH EAST LINCOLNSHIRE COUNCIL IS BECOMING SOMEWHAT NOTORIOUS FOR ITS GREED

COUNCIL TAX AND THE LAW 

  The Off-White Though Still Very Sharp

Teeth of the British State

By David Webb

I sent a long email to a Conservative councillor about council tax summons – and the way they are automated by the council computer system without judicial oversight (a magistrate has to review the evidence before each summons is sent out – pretty impossible when 4m of these summons are being sent out a year – I don’t expect there is even a pro forma attempt at getting the summons signed off by the courts; I expect the courts have ‘agreed’ that the council computers should just send out summons letters without judicial oversight); the way in which council tax cases in magistrates courts are illegally conducted by council officials with no magistrates present; and the way in which £70 is charged for the summons although the summons costs £3 [NE Lincolnshire, a neighbouring area, made £174000 in half an hour from these £70 fees recently by summoning thousands of people to court for one hearing, and only 14 turned up - there is no indication that only 'reasonable costs' are charged].

The councillor is a former magistrate and told me on the phone that I am a customer of the council. When I said “I want to take my custom elsewhere; I don’t want to be their customer”, she replied “if you’re disputing the right to levy council tax, it all becomes much more complicated” and sent me a meaningless one sentence email on the subject. The following three emails are the correspondence between me and the councillor. I deleted my phone number and address and council tax reference number.

1. 16 December, my email to a Conservative councillor:

Dear Mrs Xxxxxx,

I have £152 in council tax arrears that I want to pay off in January when I will have the money to pay it. I got a letter dated Monday 12th December to tell me to pay within 7 days or a final reminder would come, and 7 days after that I would have to pay a £70 court summons fee on top.

That takes my final date to pay the £152 to Boxing Day, 26th December. Don’t you think it is a little strange to send out these reminders with menacing threats days before Christmas? I phoned up and told the Council Tax department that I will pay in January, but the lady was very unhelpful. The £70 fee is almost half of my arrears!

My concerns relate to the fee and the way in which council tax summons are generated. I have read a lot online about this, and I know that the fee for the summons charged by the court is just £3. The Council Tax Enforcement Regulations 1992 allow “reasonable costs” to be recovered by the council, but the additional £67 added on top is very excessive for a couple of computer-generated letters.

Councils typically reply to Freedom of Information requests to say that the Courts Service has approved the £70 fee. But the Courts Service has no judicial role – only the Crown Court could hand down a judgement on whether the £70 fee constituted reasonable costs or not, and the clerks in the Courts Service cannot hand down any such ruling. To my knowledge no one has contested this in Crown Court, because it would cost thousands to do so, but it is claimed by various online sites that councils up and down the land are making £200m a year from such “court summons costs”.

For a start, the £70 is the same in nearly all councils – and yet the recovery costs must vary widely between councils. Secondly, much of the recovery costs are captured by council employees’ wages. Either way, £70 for a couple of letters is very expensive. While the councils do submit the information they have to the court clerks to rubber stamp, they do so in bulk, with thousands of cases being stamped by the court at the same time, making it questionable whether the councils are really incurring £70 a pop. It seems the councils are making an additional £70 off the most financially pressed people in their boroughs, with no real judicial oversight as to the level of costs.

I would like the council to simply agree that I can pay what I owe in the first half of January, with no court summons. Can you ask the revenue department to agree to this?

I haven’t had my summons yet, but I understand it will be sent out after Boxing Day. A nice New Year present to arrive days before I would settle the so-called bill anyway. My concerns also relate to the way in which councils – and not courts – send out these summons to magistrates’ courts. They are actually being computer-generated. You might think that reasonable given that thousands of such letters do go out. But magistrates’ summons are meant to be judicial and not administrative processes. Looking at case law, a court case from 1975 relating to such summons was R. v. Brentford Justices ex parte Catlin, where Lord Chief Justice Widgery stated “a decision by magistrates whether to issue a summons pursuant to information laid involves the exercise of a judicial function, and is not merely administrative.” See All England Law Reports [1975] 2 All ER QBD p206-207 (I am attaching a word document with scan-in of those pages from the law reports for you to read).

Lord Chief Justice Widgery was ruling on the affixing of a judge’s signature by rubber stamp – and magistrates’ summons issued by the council are not individually signed by judges, and so a rubber stamp or photocopy is used. He said:

“It is perfectly proper for a signature to be affixed by way of rubber stamp, whether applied by the justice or by a clerk or an employee of the magistrates’ clerk with the authority, general or specific, of the justice, and that conclusion, but for one matter, would be sufficient in my view to dispose of this application, because assuming that an information was indeed laid before the justice whose signature in facsimile form subsequently appeared on the summons then all the applicant’s attack on the subsequent proceedings would fall to the ground straight away and it would not be necessary to consider the other points raised in this application. However in this case it may be that, as the applicant I think wished this court to infer from the document before it, the justice before whom the information was originally laid was not the one whose signature appeared on the summons in facsimile form, and indeed I think the applicant would go further and say that this court should infer in all the circumstances of this case and proceeded on the basis that no information was ever placed before any justice prior to the issue of the summons; the summons was a mere creature of a clerk in the magistrates’ court office. It is not necessary to embark on an examination of that aspect of the matter; indeed this court would be quite unable to do so in view of the material before it, but counsel for the justices conceded certainly that if the summons had come into existence in the manner which I last referred to, namely as a purely administrative operation without any information being laid, then the summons would be bad … before a summons or warrant is issued the information must be laid before a magistrate and he must go through the judicial exercise of deciding whether a summons or warrant ought to be issued or not. If a magistrate authorises the issue of a summons without having applied his mind to the information then he is guilty of dereliction of duty and if in any particular justices’ clerk’s office a practice goes on of summonses being issued without information being laid before the magistrate at all, then a very serious instance of maladministration arises which should have the attention of the authorities without delay”.

These summonses are issued by the council’s computer. It is not credible to believe that a magistrate has reviewed the information before the computer sends out the letter. The court cases are handled in great bulk – thousands at a time, and I believe this is just an administrative summons, with no judicial aspect at all. It may be that magistrates have given images of their signatures to West Lindsey Council for the computer to use to generate summonses, as council tax case summonses are issued by the council, and not by the court, tending to show that there is no real judicial oversight. No magistrate has the legal right to give West Lindsey Council the power to issue summonses without proper adjudication in each case, by a magistrate (and not by the magistrate’s clerk or the council computer system), of whether there is grounds to issue a summons in the first place. While the clerk may affix the signature by rubber stamp, or the computer simply paste in a facsimile of the signature, there must be a real live magistrate reviewing the summons before it is sent out. I do not believe that to be the case.

When people go to court for council-tax cases, they are met at court by council officials, who try to prevent them from seeing the magistrates. While the summons claims to be a magistrate’s summons, it is printed by the council and the council conduct their own court, with no magistrate present, at the magistrates’ court! Court ushers try to persuade anyone who wants to see the magistrate that it will take many hours to see the magistrate, and so it is quicker to go to the ‘court’ being held by council officials!! Court ushers are actually obstructing the judicial process (a conspiracy to pervert the course of justice) and trying to prevent people from seeing the magistrates. Of course this is done because of the huge volume of cases.

To show how this works, I want to give an example from NE Lincolnshire, but it is the same thing for West Lindsey too.

I read of a case by a man who was summonsed over the council tax issued by NE Lincolnshire – 3,359 were summonsed all to arrive at 2pm on June 2nd, 2011! Of course, most didn’t turn up, and those who did were directed into the kangaroo court illegally conducted by council officials, and only 2 people insisted on seeing the magistrate, which they did at 4:30pm that day! You can read about this at the following web link:

THIS THREAD.

So the fact that so many thousands are summonsed at once and that court officials do their best to stop them from seeing the magistrates shows that these summons are purely administrative and not judicial – which is illegal according to Lord Chief Justice Widgery. Also NE Lincolnshire made £174,000 from the £70 costs charged for each person – in just half an hour in court, as 3,359 were dealt with in one fell swoop, most of whom were paying a £70 fee, and only 2 actually seeing the magistrate. Isn’t it obvious that NE Lincolnshire did not incur £174,000 of costs for their 30 minute court hearing (which council officials conducted themselves without magistrates present)?

Can you,

1.Ask if I can pay my bill in January [I don't recognise the legality of council tax, given that the Queen broke her Coronation Oath when she authorised various EU treaties, and that she refused to respond to the committee of Barons who asked her to restore the constitution within 40 days, as specified under Magna Carta, 1215, but I will pay as I have no choice].

2.Obtain a full breakdown of the £70 court summons fee.

3.Find out if a magistrate personally authorises every single summons that the council send out.

4.Find out the council’s view on the legal basis of the council impersonating a magistrate’s court in sending out summons.

Thank you and regards,

David Webb.

2. 18 December, her email in reply.

Dear Mr Webb

Thank you for your email which I have now read.

Please let me know the outcome of your visit to the Council Tax Office at the Guildhall in Gainsborough

Best wishes

Gill Xxxxxx

3. 18 December, my reply.

Mrs Xxxxxx,

You have not answered any of the points I made. You probably wish to brush them aside as you are a former magistrate and are a public-sector employee who earns a good salary and a pension from the council tax paid by people who have no pension provision for themselves. I regret the way that councillors all receive salaries now, as it gets them “in” on the system: councillors like you are now uniformly pro-fraud and pro-embezzlement, which is what council tax is. Can you tell me during your time as magistrate, did you personally punish individuals who received administrative summons? [I mean summons sent out by the council computers without judicial oversight]. Or did you point out to the councils during your time as magistrate that it is illegal for the council to send out automated summons pretending they have been reviewed by a magistrate first? During your time as magistrate, did you do anything to prevent council officials from conducting illegal “courts” in court buildings with no magistrates present? Or were you “in on the scam”, viewing your role as magistrate as to let the council do what they want and to do whatever the council told you to do? Did you as magistrate prevent councils from charging fees, misrepresented as court costs, to turn council tax summons into a large illegal revenue stream? We don’t have the rule of law in this country any more, and your response to me on the phone made it clear to me that you are pro-State and in favour of the state’s exactions. I expect you are rather contemptuous of the common law and not interested in opening any issue that would raise questions over your behaviour as magistrate. “Dereliction of duty” in the words of Lord Chief Justice Widgery!

Quite!

Post edited 7:34 pm – January 1, 2012 by Polystyrene anchor

North East Lincolnshire Council

Finance Department

Cleethorpes

DN35 8LN

01/01/12

Dear Head of Income & Payments Service

Re: Distress for Rent Rules Form 5 complaint to the County Court

For your information I have enclosed a sample of the Distress for Rent Rules "Form 5". This complaint form can be submitted by local authorities to notify the county court of an upheld complaint against a Certificated Bailiff. This complaint can be considered by a circuit judge in the same manner as a complaint made straight to the court by an aggrieved person, i.e. the “Form 4” route outlined in Regulation 8(1) of the Distress for Rent Rules 1988.

I’m bringing this to the attention of the council in the hope it will demonstrate some commitment to cutting out the rot which is rampant among bailiff firms collecting for councils.

I believe this procedure was not undertaken by the council even though it upheld aspects of a formal complaint I submitted, about which I will give only brief details.

On the 2nd November 2009, after repeated denial of any wrong doing by the council, I finally got recognition that two of many concerns I’d raised through a formal complaint were upheld by the council’s court enforcement manager Xxx Xxxx.

The complaint was only partially successful as many other issues about Rossendale's attempts to defraud me while collecting an alleged council tax debt for the council were dismissed, due to the difficulty of proving “phantom visits”. Never the less the unlawful levy where the bailiff secretly seized an arbitrary vehicle in a car park, solely to gain an additional £135 fee and the £60 he invented were upheld aspects of my formal complaint. Although the council either insisted or influenced Rossendales to get rid of the bailiff concerned, I believe he became employed by another enforcement firm. The effectiveness of this was at best just moving the problem to another part of the country.

I’m therefore asking that you take the opportunity of submitting details of this incident to the court which issued his certificate, Burnley Combined Court Centre. It would also be good practice if this procedure was followed in all cases where complaints are found in favour of the aggrieved complainant.

If local authorities were to adopt the practice of submitting complaints to the county courts in these circumstances, admittedly it would only highlight a fraction of the abuse. I think you’d agree, the priority of councils – whether justified or otherwise – is to find any complaint unfounded in a bid to protect its reputation. Consequently, only a small percentage of malpractice would get the attention of the courts.

There would ideally be an independent regulatory body which could deal with grievances and act on them appropriately, as apposed to the current procedure where councils miraculously seem to make all evidence of these disappear. This would lend itself to a more transparent system – the officially recorded data would then indicate the true scale of corruption.

Hopefully then, we’d be subjected to fewer bare faced lies we hear reiterated by council spokesmen, priding themselves that their appointed enforcement firms are governed by the National Standards for Enforcement Agent’s Code of Practice with such complaints being as rare as rocking horse manure. Neither would the boss of Rossendales get away with such sickening Oscar winning performances as those seen on her television interview on ITV’s Exposure programme – portraying her incredulity that any of her bailiffs could be wayward.

Yours sincerely

P. Anchor.