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

The request was successful.

Dear Torbay Borough 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 Torbay Borough Council have its computer software set to deal with non specific payments. Current or oldest year's liability?

Yours faithfully,

Gwyn Worth

Freedom of Information, Torbay Borough Council

Dear Ms Worth

Thank you for your request for information, which was received on 4 November 2017. We are currently processing your request and will contact you within 20 working days.

If you have any queries regarding your request, please do not hesitate to contact us, quoting the reference number above in all communications.

Yours sincerely

Katherine Boyer
Information Compliance Apprentice
Torbay Council
 
Phone: 01803 207034
Mail: Information Compliance, Torbay Council, Town Hall, Castle Circus, Torquay, TQ1 3DR

The Information Compliance Team will aim to acknowledge correspondence within 3 working days unless a restriction is in place.

This email and any attachments are intended solely for the use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential information and/or may be legally privileged. If you have received this email in error, please notify the sender immediately and delete this email.

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Freedom of Information, Torbay Borough Council

2 Attachments

Dear Ms Worth

 

Further to your request received on 4 November 2017, I confirm that Torbay
Council has now considered your request under the Freedom of Information
Act 2000.

 

Our response is attached.

 

The information supplied to you continues to be protected by the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. You are free to use it for your
own purposes, including any non-commercial research you are doing and for
the purpose of news reporting. Any other re-use, for example commercial
publication, would require the permission of the copyright holder.

 

Torbay Council publishes Access to Information requests and responses on
its online Disclosure Log. Only requests deemed to be in the public
interest will be included and any request included within this log will be
de-personalised accordingly.

 

To view the Council’s Disclosure Log, please visit
[1]www.torbay.gov.uk/disclosurelog

 

If you have any queries about this email please do not hesitate to contact
me directly, quoting the reference number listed at the top of this letter
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If you are unhappy with the Council’s response to your request and wish to
make a complaint please write to Information Compliance, Town Hall, Castle
Circus, Torquay, TQ1 3DR or complete the on-line complaint form that can
be found at [2]www.torbay.gov.uk.

 

If after going through the Council’s complaints process you are still not
satisfied, you can contact the Information Commissioner direct.

 

Information Helpline: 0303 123 1113
Commissioner 01625 545 745
 
Wycliffe [3][email address]
House Email:
[4]www.ico.org.uk
Water Lane Website:

Wilmslow

Cheshire SK9
5AF

 

Yours sincerely

 

 

Bee Laithwaite

Information Compliance Support Officer

Torbay Council

Torquay Town Hall

Castle Circus

Torquay

TQ1 3DR

01803 207177

*: [5][email address]

[6]cid:image001.png@01CF5A20.BA7692A0

 

The Information Compliance Team will aim to acknowledge correspondence
within 3 working days unless a restriction is in place.

 

 

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References

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Dear Freedom of Information,

Thank you for stating that 'the oldest outstanding debt where the payment does not match an instalment'.

Would you please confirm whether or not any measures are in place to check that allocating an unmatched payment to the oldest debt in these circumstances would have the consequences of putting the current year's liability also in arrears, and if so, in accordance with R. v Miskin Lower Justices [1953] 1 Q.B. 533, whether the payment would be moved in respect of the current year's account to avoid unnecessary recovery action, additional costs etc.?

Yours sincerely,

Gwyn Worth

infocompliance, Torbay Borough Council

Dear Ms Worth

I have asked for clarification from the department and will let you have a
response as soon as possible.

Kind regards

Vicky

Vicky Wills
Information Compliance Advisor
Torbay Council

Phone: 01803 207467

The Information Compliance Team will aim to acknowledge correspondence
within 3 working days unless a restriction is in place.

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Freedom of Information, Torbay Borough Council

Dear Ms Worth

 

Please find below clarification from the department as requested.

 

Would you please confirm whether or not any measures are in place to check
that allocating an unmatched payment to the oldest debt in these
circumstances would have the consequences of putting the current year's
liability also in arrears, and if so, in accordance with R. v Miskin Lower
Justices [1953] 1 Q.B. 533, whether the payment would be moved in respect
of the current year's account to avoid unnecessary recovery action,
additional costs etc.?

 

Yes, in the case of unallocated payments there are procedures in place to
seek to identify whether a payment should be credited to the current year
or previous year liability, in order to seek to mitigate the risk of the
customer of incurring unnecessary recovery action in respect of the
current financial year.

 

I trust this completes your request. Any further questions regarding this
issue will be logged as new requests for information.

 

Yours sincerely

 

 

Vicky Wills

Information Compliance Advisor

Torbay Council

 

The Information Compliance Team will aim to acknowledge correspondence
within 3 working days unless a restriction is in place.

 

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Dear Freedom of Information,

Thank you for clarifying my query. I consider Torbay Borough 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, 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*: "...in the case of unallocated payments there are procedures in place to seek to identify whether a payment should be credited to the current year or previous year liability, in order to seek to mitigate the risk of the customer of incurring unnecessary recovery action in respect of the current financial year."

Yours sincerely,

Gwyn Worth