Dear Mr Gill

Re: - Request for Information - Bankruptcy Proceedings - Reference Number:  FOI/COR/CTAX/6046 - Supplemental

I refer to your e-mail dated 19 October 2009 and received by Manchester City Council on 20 October 2009 seeking additional information to that supplied by the Council in our letter dated 19 October 2009 setting out the Council's response to your original request for information made on 30 September 2009. Your request for additional information has been considered under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FoIA).

I apologise for the delay in responding to your request for additional information.

Your 5 requests for additional information, together with the Council's response to those requests are set out below:

1. From what date has the attached bankruptcy and insolvency policy final 2009.doc been used? If only recently, please could you supply the document(s) from previous six years.

The policy that was sent to you as an attachment to the Council's letter dated 19 October 2009 was introduced in 2008 and revised in April 2009. I attach to this letter a copy of the 2008 version of this policy.

2. Please could you clarify how many (if any) of these bankruptcy petitions were taken against employees of Manchester City Council and if so, what were the outcomes of these cases?

The Council does not hold employer information on all cases where the Council takes insolvency proceedings. In addition, even where the Council does hold employer information it does not record this information in a form that would allow the Council to respond to your precise request. In order to produce the information that you have requested, the Council would need to `retrieve' or `extract' it from 1,444 individual case files. The Council estimates that if it were to produce the information that you have requested the statutory cost limit under FoIA of £450 (which is calculated as being approximately 2.5 days of a council officer's time to determine whether the Council holds the information, locate, retrieve and extract the information) would be exceeded. If you require more information about the Council's Fees & Charges Policy, this may be downloaded from http://www.manchester.gov.uk/site/scripts/download_info.php?fileID=2658. If you do not have internet access and require a paper copy, please let me know.

FoIA does not oblige us to comply with requests that exceed the statutory cost limit of £450 and therefore I am not able to comply with your current request.

If you are able to modify or narrow the scope of your request, it may be possible to provide some of the information without exceeding the statutory cost limit.

If you decide to modify/narrow the scope of your request, please note that this will be treated as a new request and dealt with in accordance with the time limits specified in FoIA. If I do not hear from you within three months of the date of this letter, I will assume that you do not wish to submit a revised request and will close my file.

3. If the above is not applicable, then please could you supply me with numbers of Manchester City Council employees who are, or who have been in arrears for council tax. What recovery methods were/are being used for them - i.e. attachment of earnings, charging orders, etc.

If the Council is made aware, following the issue of a Liability Order, that a taxpayer or partner (joint or several) works for Manchester City Council, the order of recovery will normally be:

Currently there are 237 Council employees known to have attachment of earnings in place.

If a case is returned from the bailiff without collection, insolvency and committal proceedings would also be considered.

4. Also of the 1444 bankruptcy petitions issued, as per your recent response, you state that 1427 were home owners/mortgage payers. Please could you clarify the status of the remaining 17?

The remaining 17 all rented their property.

5. How many of these bankruptcies - if any - are presently being investigated by the Local Government Ombudsman.

The Council has not been made aware that any of these bankruptcies are presently being investigated by the Local Government Ombudsman.

Please note if you are not satisfied with this response you may ask for an internal review.  If you wish to complain you should contact Lynn Evans, Information Compliance Officer (information-compliance @manchester.gov.uk) in the first instance. Your complaint will be considered by a senior officer who has not already been involved with this response. If you require more information about the Council's access to information complaints procedure this can be downloaded directly from:

http://www.manchester.gov.uk/site/scripts/documents_info.php?categoryID=200031&documentID=1322&pageNumber=3

Alternatively, if you prefer a paper copy, please let me know.

If you remain dissatisfied after an internal review has been undertaken, you have a right to apply to the Information Commissioner for a decision. The Information Commissioner will normally expect you to exhaust our complaints machinery before considering your complaint.

The Information Commissioner can be contacted at:

Information Commissioner's Office

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire

SK9 5AF

Please remember to quote the reference number above in any future communications.

Yours sincerely

Charles Metcalfe

Charles Metcalfe

Revenues Manager

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