Ensuring customers are not subject to unnecessary recovery action, additional costs or hardship

The request was successful.

Dear Shepway District Council,

A council taxpayer who owes more than just the current year's liability runs the risk of incurring additional recovery costs through a further application for a liability order if payments which are intended for the current year's liability are allocated by the council's computer to the previous year's liability. This would most likely happen where a non specific payment is made and the computer software is set to automatically allocate these payments to the oldest year's debt.

Councils computer systems have the necessary flexibility to be set to allow non specific payments to be allocated to the arrears or the current year's liability.

I understand that the majority of billing authorities have their computer software set to ensure that their customers are not subject to unnecessary recovery action, additional costs or hardship, i.e. so non specific payments are allocated to the current year's liability.

How does Shepway Council have its computer software set to deal with non specific payments. Current or oldest year's liability?

Yours faithfully,

Gwyn Worth

Folkestone & Hythe District Council

1 Attachment

Dear Gwyn Worth

 

As this is requesting answers to questions concerning formulation of
policy and not solely a request for recorded information it should be
treated as routine correspondence rather than being handled under the
Freedom of Information Act 2000.   I have therefore forwarded this to the
Senior Systems Officer and asked him to respond to you direct.  I am sure
that you will hear from Mr Mark Mullender shortly, however, if you need to
make contact with him his email address is:  [email address]
.

 

Kind regards,

 

 

Eric Thomas  ACFS

Information Officer

Tel: 01303 853419

[mobile number]

Shepway District Council, Civic Centre, Castle Hill Avenue,

Folkestone, Kent, CT20 2QY

E-mail: [1][Shepway District Council request email]

Website: [2]www.shepway.gov.uk

 

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Folkestone & Hythe District Council

1 Attachment

Hi Gwyn

 

At Shepway District Council we have a system that uses 49 rules to, as
accurately as possible, allocate the payments made to the correct debt.
This ensures that the customer does not incur any additional costs or
unnecessary further recovery or enforcement action. The last rule of which
is to allocate to the oldest debt.

 

Where payments have been allocated to a debt that was contrary to the
customers intention we manually reallocate and remove any costs where
appropriate. This may have been advised by the customer or as part of a
regular review of accounts where it becomes apparent that the payment is
incorrectly allocated.

 

We also set recovery profiles so that we can control any action that is
taken so as not to cause unnecessary stress or hardship to the customer.

 

I hope this answers your query.

 

Best Regards

 

Mark Mullender
Senior Systems Officer
Business Support
T: 01303 853399
M. 07734 777478
Shepway District Council,Civic Centre
Castle Hill Avenue, Folkestone,Kent CT20 2QY
[1][email address]
[2]www.shepway.gov.uk
                                                                                 
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From: Thomas, Eric On Behalf Of information.officer
Sent: 26 October 2017 10:34
To: 'Gwyn Worth' <[FOI #440954 email]>
Cc: Mullender, Mark <[email address]>
Subject: Freedom of Information request - Ensuring customers are not
subject to unnecessary recovery action, additional costs or hardship

 

Dear Gwyn Worth

 

As this is requesting answers to questions concerning formulation of
policy and not solely a request for recorded information it should be
treated as routine correspondence rather than being handled under the
Freedom of Information Act 2000.   I have therefore forwarded this to the
Senior Systems Officer and asked him to respond to you direct.  I am sure
that you will hear from Mr Mark Mullender shortly, however, if you need to
make contact with him his email address is: 
[6][email address] .

 

Kind regards,

 

 

Eric Thomas  ACFS

Information Officer

Tel: 01303 853419

[mobile number]

Shepway District Council, Civic Centre, Castle Hill Avenue,

Folkestone, Kent, CT20 2QY

E-mail: [7][Shepway District Council request email]

Website: [8]www.shepway.gov.uk

 

Follow us on [9]Twitter and [10]Facebook

 

P Please consider the Environment before printing this email

 

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show quoted sections

Dear Shepway District Council,

Thank you for responding to my queries. I consider Shepway District Council has provided the information I requested. The purpose of this exercise was to ascertain whether or not the principles surrounding the appropriation of payments were being adhered to.

R v Miskin Lower Justices (1953)

It was held in R v Miskin Lower Justices, that where an amount obviously relates to a specific liability, it would be an unwarranted assumption to allocate the payment elsewhere.

If no instruction is given at the time of payment, then the council has a duty to allocate payment to the account which it is most beneficial to the debtor to reduce. That would be in the majority of cases the current liability if the consequences of allocating payment to the arrears meant that the customer was subject to unnecessary recovery action, additional costs etc.

I understand by the council's response (see *note*) that there are measures in place to ensure that unspecified payments are allocated to the account which it is least burdensome for the debtor to reduce, and consequently the laws surrounding the appropriation of payments are being complied with. This effectively means that an unmatched payment allocated to the oldest debt (having the consequences of putting the current year's liability also in arrears) would be reallocated to the current year's liability on account of the circumstances implying that this was the debtor's intention (least burdensome for the debtor).

*Note*: "Where payments have been allocated to a debt that was contrary to the customers intention we manually reallocate and remove any costs where appropriate. This may have been advised by the customer or as part of a regular review of accounts where it becomes apparent that the payment is incorrectly allocated.

We also set recovery profiles so that we can control any action that is taken so as not to cause unnecessary stress or hardship to the customer."

Yours faithfully,

Gwyn Worth