I dont usually mention personal matters on this blog, but I detail below my experience trying to pay this year's Council Tax to Thanet Council as I think it just might be a problem others are experiencing.
I have paid my Council Tax by Direct Debit ever since moving to Thanet.
On the 11/08/2008 I received comunication from Thanet Council, saying what I owed and detailing my payment schedule of 5 monthly payments.
On 20/10/2008 I had a letter from TDC saying that my monthly payments had stopped and I owed two payments.
I immediately rang my bank, who told me that my direct debit was still active but that TDC had failed to collect the payment. I then rang TDC and explained and was given assurance that the situation would be corrected.
On the 23/10/2008 I received a letter confirming what I still owed and that my payments had been rescheduled to 5 monthly payments until
04/03/2009.
On the 12/11/2008 I received a letter saying my Council Tax was still unpaid and threatening legal action if I didnt pay the whole ammount within 7 days.
I rang TDC again, and was told once again that corrective action would be taken, the monthly direct debit would be reinstated and the period of payment adjusted accordingly.
My latest communication from TDC, dated 12/11/2008 again states what I owe (which is not disputed) but this time does not mention a schedule of payments at all.
I am anticipating receiving a Court Summons any time now!
My complaint is that this situation is entirely of TDC's making. I expect the council to correct the situation, reinstate my schedule of monthly payments, Compensate me for the time and costs of my efforts to get the situation corrected, and apoligise to me and my wife for the stress and aggravation caused.
Update 20 Nov 2008
I've had the following response from the Council
Dear Councillor Green,
I write with reference to you e-mail sent to Donna Reed, which has been passed to me for response. I can confirm that I have commenced an investigation into the reasons why your Direct Debit has not been collected since August 2008. It appears that this is as a result of an error within IBS but thus far I have been unable to replicate the error and therefore, I am unsure why such circumstances have arisen.I can confirm that I have re-instated the payment of your account by Direct Debit for monthly instalments from 4 December 2008 through to 4th March 2009.Please accept my most sincere apologies for the distress and inconvenience this matter will have caused you. Your email to Donna has been recorded as a corporate complaint and I can assure you that this will be fully investigated and a formal response sent in writing by the end of this week.
(note: IBS is the Council's financial software package)
Stella Artwat
7 hours ago
18 comments:
David we got a letter to the effect that TDC direct debits had to be renewed some time ago, after three attempts with the attached form, partly my fault and partly theirs I managed to get it right.
What did occur to me as none of the other direct debits we have, have ever had to be updated, this was all about generating masses of paperwork for no apparent reason.
I expect your letter and form went astray somewhere.
Only ten years -seems longer than that !!!!
The record of loads of payments at Gateway went missing too.
Direct Debits for Council Tax do not have to be renewed every year assuming that the Council in question are a actually administering it correctly.
The original problem sounds like it was initially a system problem which a human has not grasped the nettle with and sorted out
They asked us to fill out the forms because they were changing their system - cant they do it at the end of one financial year/beginning of another - such bad planning, they usually take 10 direct debit payments so it wouldnt have been difficult to have changed the paperwork in the 2months space - does anyone at TDC have any commonsense?
Nope!
wouldn't hold your breath. I had a similar problem about 3 years ago. They couldn't cope with the idea that my bank the Coventry Building Society had its bank done through the Midland.
No apology a consistently scathing and cycnical attitude and yes it was only when we were about to go to court that someone could be bothered to check that it might conceivably be possible that somebody in Thanet DC could possible be less than perfect and might conceivably have made an error.
I reckon most of my council tax that year went on trying to collect it because of the head in the sand attitude.
I asked for full details of my records under the Freedom of Information Act to try and find out went wrong. I am still waiting for a response.
Since I have become a councillor I realised this corporate culture is far too common and in need of desperate reform.
Best wishes
Cllr Mark Nottingham
Cllr Green, does this mean you cannot vote on the budget?
Cllr Nottingham you sound like a man who can try and bring some sort of commonsense to the council although you were a bit out of order at the china gateway debate.
We had a similar summons to the court when we were due a business rates refund but they wanted to take us to court to get us to pay it over before refunding it. Took our local MPS intervention to avoid the bailiffs - think the TDC officers are off the planet in the rates paying collection dept - think we are all trying to avoid paying - we are - but sometimes legitimately!
The easy way to pay the Council Tax is to deal directly with TDC's Bank paying system, via your own banks internet system (if you have one). The Direct debits system at TDC is an absolute shambles.
I had to deal with attempts by TDC to take money from a relative via the Council Tax fines system at the court ( we won that one). The council must be squandering god knows how much tax payers money due to fiscal incompetance in the administering of the council tax system. I suspect the fines system must be a right little earner for TDC?
Further more TDC's system is punishing the weak by institutional maladministration.
Having had to go to court that day really opened my eyes to a real dogs dinner that the Auditors will not get into...why?
You opened a can of worms on this one David. This is a commonly complained about department and these stories are very common. I don't know anyone who has had to pay council tax that does not have a story of frustration with that department and I network like there is no tomorrow.
A couple of years ago I got a new Council Tax bill from TDC saying they have had to rearrange my instalments because I had now signed up to pay by direct debit. I thought this was odd as I hadn't signed anything of the sort. Upon further investigation someone else with the same name as me had sent their direct debit application in and TDC had set all their bank details up on my Council Tax account ready to take the payments.
Not that I would have minded someone else paying my Council Tax for me but the other person may have had a bit of an issue with it.
No apology or anything ever received.
Compared to the near destruction of the economic stability of the country by Gordon Brown and his similarly blind to reality cronies in the banks, I think this is small beer.
Anon 19:44 - small beer it may be but a tad easier for someone to sort out than the current economic woes
At least TDC acknowledged the problem and apologised. I am sure they will fix it. I don't think Gordon Brown will acknowledge any failures, or apologise.
Does Cllr Nottingham live in thanet? on the councils website you can only talk to this wraith by email or a mobile????
Anon 12.48, I imagine you are a local Tory Councillor, or at least a Tory supporter. Whatever, you display the usual Tory approach of personal comment and abuse rather than considered opinion and debate.
"Wraith" is not as bad as some of the local right-wing utterances, but is still unnecessary.
You don't all have to follow your local Leader's example.
just getting into all these thanet bloggs and very good they are.
I was so fed up with TDC and their unique way of collecting the money I now pay by cheque, more time consuming, more costly to administer but a damn site more secure for my money
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