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

The request was successful.

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

Yours faithfully,

Gwyn Worth

External Email for Freedom Of Information, South Staffordshire District Council

Thank you for your Freedom of Information request. Your email will be
forwarded to the relevant department(s) who will respond to you in due
course.

Lander, Chris, South Staffordshire District Council

Dear Gwyn

I write in response to your request under the Freedom of Information Act.

Where a payment matches a current year instalment it is automatically allocated to that year. In the event of a non-specific payment, the payment is allocated to the oldest debt.

To mitigate the risk of a customer having unnecessary recovery action being taken against them, we review the cash postings every day to ensure payments made to the oldest debt have been allocated correctly.

Furthermore, if at any point it comes to our attention that the payment was specifically meant for the current year, the payment is transferred and any recovery action that has commenced is withdrawn.

If you are dissatisfied with the handling of your request, you have the right to ask for an internal review. Internal review requests should be submitted within two months of the date of receipt of the response to your original letter and should be addressed to Lorraine Fowkes at [email address]
Please remember to quote the reference number above in any future communications.

If you are not content with the outcome of the internal review, you have the right to apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a decision. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at: Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.

Regards
Chris Lander

Revenues Manager

Revenues & Benefits
South Staffordshire Council

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Dear Mr Lander,

Thank you for your response. It is encouraging that South Staffordshire District Council is apparently mindful of the principles surrounding the appropriation of payments and implement them.

Yours sincerely,

Gwyn Worth