Liability Orders granted for less than £10

Neil Gilliatt made this Freedom of Information request to North East Lincolnshire Council This request has been closed to new correspondence. Contact us if you think it should be reopened.

The request was successful.

Dear North East Lincolnshire Council,

Please supply the number of Liability Orders for non-payment of Council Tax (categorised into the relevant years 2006 to Date) where the outstanding balance was less than £100. If any were less than £10 could you please itemised the amount and again categorised into the relevant years.

Yours faithfully,

Neil Gilliatt

PPD - FOI, North East Lincolnshire Council

Dear Mr Gilliatt

I am pleased to acknowledge your request for information received on 29 June 2011, which has been allocated the reference number 20110665.

Your request has been passed to the relevant department for processing and you can expect your response within the 20 working day limit. If it will take us longer than 20 working days to respond to you, we will inform you of this and provide you with the expected date for receiving the response.

Further information about how we will deal with your Freedom of Information requests is available on our website at: http://www.nelincs.gov.uk/council-and-de...

Please feel free to contact me if you require any further information or assistance quoting the reference number above.

Yours sincerely

Freedom of Information Officer
North East Lincolnshire Council

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Peterson, Daniella, North East Lincolnshire Council

1 Attachment

Dear Neil

Thank you for your request under the Freedom of information Act made on
the 29th June 2011.
Under section 1 of the act I wish to confirm that North East Lincolnshire
Council holds the information you have requested.

1. Total Liability Orders issued on Ctax accounts with initial debt under
£100.00 (Includes under £10.00)
Total LO's
2006/07 1205
2007/08 1255
2008/09 1374
2009/10 1304
2010/11 1442
2. Total Liability Orders issued on Ctax accounts with initial debt under
£10.00
Year Total LO's
2006/07 20
2007/08 24
2008/09 18
2009/10 7
2010/11 13
<<Mr Gilliatt Liability Orders 2006 to 2011.xls>>
If you require any further clarication or details, please do not hesitate
to contact me, quoting the reference number above.

If you are unhappy with the response you have received you have the right
to request an internal review by the council.
If following this you are still dissatisfied you may contact the Office of
the Information Commissioner. If you wish to request an internal review,

please contact me and I will make the necessary arrangements.

Kind Regards
Daniella Peterson
Business Support Officer
North East Lincolnshire Council
Civic Offices, Knoll Street, Cleethorpes, DN35 8LN
Tel - 01472 323927

Neil Gilliatt

Dear Peterson, Daniella,

Thank you for your reply to my FOI request regarding the number of Liability Orders obtained for Council Tax debt under £100.

From the data provided it appears that the council have obtained the following Liability Orders over the last 5 years:

• 6,580 Liability Orders issued for debt less than £100

• 1,387 for debt less than £25

• 981 for debt less than £20

• 544 for debt less than £15

• 82 for debt less than £10

• 45 for debt less than £5

• 12 for debt less than £1

• 3 Liability Orders issued for debt of only 1p

The Liability Orders obtained from the Magistrates' court permit the authority to call in the bailiffs, therefore attracting additional fees to those penalties already incurred by the alleged debtors.

You can see from the statistics arranged above that the figures must be incorrect as it would be complete madness to bring about court proceedings for such low levels of debt and subjecting these residents to unnecessary expense and the stress that comes with bailiff involvement.

It seems the only way this scenario could come about would be if the administration of Council Tax were completely automated with the software package used having no functionality built into it to automatically withdraw Liability Order applications for small balances.

Because of the disturbing implications of the data you have supplied could you please check these figures are correct.

Yours sincerely,

Neil Gilliatt

Dear Peterson, Daniella,

By law, the authority should have responded by 28 July 2011

Yours sincerely,

Neil Gilliatt

PPD - FOI, North East Lincolnshire Council

Dear Mr Gilliatt

In response to your query received on July 6th 2011, I can confirm on
behalf of the Income and Payments section that the information provided
to you on July 6th 2011 is correct

This response was originally sent on 01 August 2011 10:41 to the link
for request 20110659/20110740, please accept my apology for this mistake

Yours sincerely

Paul Ellis
Corporate Records and Information Manager
North East Lincolnshire Council

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PPD - FOI, North East Lincolnshire Council

Dear Mr Gilliatt,

An internal review has taken place at your request into the response
you received on August 1^st 2011, which was posted to the link for
requests 20110659 and 20110740.

Background

On July 20^th your request 20110740, asked for `information (additional to
postage discounts) that justifies the cost of outsourcing these postal
services?' On July 25^th, in response to your request you were provided
with an explanation of the Council's decision to outsource the printing
and mailing activities to a third party and a copy of specification
issued.

On July 25^th, you asked the Council to state if the 'staff time required
to perform these mailing activities are minimal or not?' On July 26^th,
you were provided with an explanation of the staff time required to
perform these tasks both prior and since the outsourcing.

Subsequent correspondence was received from you on July 26^th (twice) and
July 29^th, which was responded to on July 26^th, July 29^th and August
1^st.

Also on August 1^st, a response was sent to your correspondence of July
6^th in relation to request 20110665, confirming that the information
provided to you on July 6^th was correct. In response to this you
requested an internal review stating that `As far as I'm aware there was
no information provided to me on 6
July 2011 regarding this request.'

Internal Review

You made a request through the `what do they know' website on June 23^rd
entitled `Council's appointed bailiffs - 14 day notices', this was
allocated the reference number 20110659. On July 20^th you closed this
request and made a new request which was allocated the reference 20110740.
This means that requests 20110659 and 20110740 are both on the same `what
do they know' link. On July 5^th the response to another one of your
request 20110665, was sent in error to the link for 20110659. In
undertaking this review I have looked at requests 20110665 and 20110740
separately.

20110665

On June 29^th you made the request entitled `Liability Orders granted for
less than £10' this was responded to initially on July 5^th, but was
sent in error to the link for request 20110659. This error was pointed out
to us by you on July 6^th, and the response was sent to the correct link
on July 6^th.

Further to this response you sent a further request on July 6^th, asking
for the figures to be checked to ensure that they are correct. The
response to this request was sent on August 1^st, again to the link for
request 20110659, now 20110740, rather than the link for 20110665.

Please accept my apology on behalf of the Council for this repeated error,
and I have arranged for the response of August 1^st to be sent to the
correct link.

20110740

This request asked for `information (additional to postage discounts) that
justifies the cost of outsourcing these postal services?' As the answer to
this question has been provided to you on a number of responses, and has
included a response to another request, I am pleased to provide the
following consolidated response to your request.

The Council's decision to use a third party for printing and mailing
activities, was based firstly on the large volumes involved, secondly to
achieve value for money and thirdly to ensure the most effective use of
the Council's resources. Prior to outsourcing the printing and mailing to
FDML, these activities required a significant amount of employee resource
on a daily basis for the printing, sorting and enveloping of the daily
bills. The amount of time taken to complete these tasks was significant,
especially at the start of the Financial Year when 70,000 Council Tax
bills have to be sent out in time for the April 1^st instalments to begin.
Bills are also posted on a daily basis all year round due changes in
circumstances i.e. Single Adult Discounts, Benefit awards, people moving
in and out of properties. There are also the significant activities
required supporting the monthly processes of issuing Reminders, Final
notices and 14 Day notices. Based on the above information North East
Lincolnshire Council took the decision for the administration of these
notices to be taken on by a third party.

Following the Council's Contract Procedure rules, the print unit issued a
specification, which has been provided to you, and invited quotes from
companies who had the capacity to undertake the large volume of printing
and mailing required to meet the Council's requirements. Four quotes were
received and FDML were chosen as the successful bidder based on price and
known ability to deliver the service required.

Since the outsourcing of the contract to FDML, who use specialist
machinery within their processes, the resources now required by North East
Lincolnshire Council to support the printing and mailing activities are
minimal.

Conclusion

I uphold your complaint in relation to the Council's handling of your
request 20110665, which has resulted in two responses being posted to the
incorrect link on the `what do they know' website.

If you remain dissatisfied with the Council's handling of your request
20110665 or the information provided to you, you have a right of appeal to
the Information Commissioner.

Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Telephone 08456 306060 or 01625 545745

Yours sincerely on behalf of North East Lincolnshire Council

Freedom of Information Officer
North East Lincolnshire Council

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Dear PPD - FOI,

I have quite honestly no idea what is going on now with this FOI request.

Particularly regarding the following:

QUOTE:

"I uphold your complaint in relation to the Council's handling of your request 20110665, which has resulted in two responses being posted to the incorrect link on the `what do they know' website."

As far as I can recall, I have not made a complaint regarding the two responses being posted to the incorrect link.

I will say however, that I don't require any further correspondence regarding this FOI request and consider the FOI request entitled "Liability Orders granted for less than £10" to have been successful.

Yours sincerely,

Neil Gilliatt