Background papers on use of electoral register to assess entitlement to section 11 discount of 25%

Please also include correspondance and material related to the question of whether councils could lawfully supply the full electoral register to the Audit Commission for data processing in connection with Section 11 discounts.

The Audit Commission eventually released a couple of documents on this.

One dating from around 2007/8 gives the impression that auditors can tell by comparing the electoral register with council tax data that individuals are not entitled to something called a 'sole occupant' discount which they are allegedly claiming. There is of course no such thing as a sole occupant discount, and nor do council tax data sets incude the 'claims' signed by taxpayers, which in any case vary from council to council.

The second is a review of council tax law. The document says that the review was undertaken as a result of complaints. The complaint was the incorrect information about the results of NFI data processing was published in the form of a national report. The review finds that the report in question could more accurately reflect council tax law.

This review defined 'potential fraud' as lack of entitlement. It admits that this processing does not indicate lack of entitlement. However, it denies that there is any need for each 'hit' on the NFI 'hit' lists to indicate lack of entitlement, or indeed to indicate any inconsistency or anomaly or discrepancy at all.

It says this does not matter as council investigators will be able to find out whether people on the 'hit' lists are innocent or guilty.

It does not begin to deal with the problematic areas here such as

Why should anybody have to convince council investigators that they are 'innocent' when nobody has any evidence to the contrary?

The routine use of threats to cancel discounts mid way through the year if people do not cooperate in proving themselves and their families 'innocent'

The fact that the results of the processing get shared widely, becoming 'data' in themselves

The fact that nowhere in the primary or delegated legislation is any standard of proof laid down before people may be 'assumed' to be guilty

The apparent inconsistencies between that the NFI is actually doing and the requirements of a statutory code of data matching practice explicitly intended to protect the rights of the innocent which states that where a match is found there 'is an inconsistency' requiring investigation.

If you have had a 'review' letter from your council this year, it may well be that this was in fact what the NFI calls an 'investigation' letter and that you are on one of the NFI's evidence free 'hit lists'. The council is investigating you in search of fraud, and works by a process of elimination. You eliminate yourself from the list of suspects by proving you are not guilty, and you do this though nobody has any evidence to the contrary.

Complain to the Information Commissioner, to the NFI itself and to the council. If the NFI tells you you cannot complain about the NFI ignore it. Not only can you complain but it says in the statutory code of data matching practice that the NFI must take account of complaints. That of course makes it totally inappropriate for them to have told people they simply cannot complain about it, which they have.

You were under no legal obligation to inform your council of changed circumstances which did not affect the amount and rate of your discount. Your council may mislead you about this, but it remains the truth. Do not let them tell you otherwise, and if you do, then the Local Government Ombudsman would be the place to complain about maladministration resulting in injustice.

You do not have to have been personally affected by the misuse of your personal data to write to the Information Commissioner.

The statutory code of data matching practice is on the Audit Commission web site. However, be WARNED that this web site contains a number of documents that mis-state council tax law and the significance of this data mangling exercise. These include various circulars and at least one national report. The NFI has admitted this in internal documents which are on this web site.

But despite admitting it as early as Feb 2009 it has for some reason taken no steps to correct the false information, though it could quite easily put the truth on its web site at very little cost if it chose to.

Though the Audit Commission solicitor who produced the legal briefing did offer to ensure that nobody else got the law wrong, no action appears to have been taken, with the result that those responsible for investigating NFI 'hit lists' rely on misleading and inaccurate NFI publications eg one annual report.

In this situation people falsely believe therefore that this match shows an inconsistency or false statement when it most certainly does not.

This freedom of information reply includes false information. The Commission asserts that councils provide it with information about the 'basis' on which a discount has been 'awarded'. This assertion has no 'basis' in council tax law. The contents of council tax data sets, which are in the public domain, do not reflect the 'basis' on which, by law, councils must have deducted the appropriate amount from council tax bills.

The legal briefing provided, belatedly, by the Commission's own solicitors, shows this beyond any doubt.