Agenda item

Subject to the required notice being given, Members of the Council can ask questions of the Chairman of the Council, the Leader of the Council, Portfolio Holders or Chairmen of Committees or Sub-Committees.

The time allocated for receiving and disposing of questions shall be a maximum of 45 minutes. Any question not disposed of at the end of this time shall be the subject of a written response, copied to all Members unless withdrawn by the questioner.

Two questions have been received, on notice, from Members and they are attached to this Agenda,

The Council had received questions from Members in relation to:

(1)       Process/stages for collecting Council Tax arrears; and

(2)       Level of resources available within the Planning Enforcement section.

Notice of the questions had been given in accordance with Council Procedure Rule 11.2.

Question One

From Councillor Richard Everett to Councillor Tom Howard, Portfolio Holder for Finance, Revenues & Benefits:

“Can the Portfolio Holder for Finance, Revenue and Benefits please set out the process / stages for collection of council tax arrears paying particular intention to the following issues (and the timescales over which they are taken):

at what point do arrears become counted as overdue;

when communications are sent to individuals in arrears;

at what point do arrears become a debt;

when is court action considered;

at what point is court action commenced;

when, if appropriate, attachment to earnings are commenced;

and can he advise whether this procedure is different in any way when it involves a Councillor?”

Councillor Howard responded as follows:

“I thank Councillor Everett for his question and I set out the recovery processes involved in the collection of Council Tax as follows which covers the specific points he has raised.

The recovery process follows the relevant legislation applied, regulations and best practice. By default, Council Taxpayers are offered 10 monthly instalments to pay the annual amount due but they can on request an extension to 12 months. After a minimum period of 14 days of an instalment falling due if payment has not been received a Reminder is issued which would also explain the next stage of the recovery process. Following receipt of a Reminder Council Taxpayers are given at least seven days to make payment but in practice they are given slightly longer to the end of the relevant month to make the payment.

If payment is not received by the end of the relevant month a Summons would be issued during the following month for the full amount which, in effect, gives a further 16 days for the outstanding amount to be paid before the Court date.

If payment is not received by the Court date a Liability Order for the full amount will be sought by the Court which in effect confirms the outstanding amount as a recoverable debt. Once a Liability Order is obtained a number of recovery powers become available to the Council which would include Attachment of Earnings, deductions from Member Allowances, enforcement agents and deductions from benefits.

Following the Court hearing an information request is issued to every person where a Liability Order has been obtained giving them the opportunity to secure an arrangement in order to clear the outstanding debt and making them aware of the different types of enforcement action that can be taken against them if they fail to secure an arrangement or adhere to one if obtained. After a minimum period of 14 days after a Liability Order being obtained the Council would consider which recovery avenue to pursue based on the information held if payment has not been received or an arrangement secured.

If during the above process a Council Taxpayer paid an outstanding amount after the receipt of a Reminder no further recovery action is taken. If they then default again on another instalment later in the year they will get a second Reminder with the same recovery process that I have highlighted. If payment was received before the Summons was issued they would keep the right to instalments. If the same thing happens for a third time in any one year they would receive a final Reminder and lose the right to pay by instalments straight away with the Summons issued if payment was not made on the receipt of this final Reminder.

The process I have just outlined would apply to all Council Taxpayers irrespective of whether they are a Councillor or not.”

Councillor Everett then asked the following supplementary question:

“Thank you for your very, very apt response. Given that your response identifies processes and procedures relating to Councillors and given that an Upper Tribunal has recently made a relevant ruling, the Maughan judgement relating to public interest, would you think it appropriate to refer the general matter of processes and procedures involving Councillors and the payment of Council Tax to the Standards Committee? I feel that advice and guidance to Councillors on the impact of this ruling in the Upper Tribunal might well be useful to some, if not all, of us.”

Councillor Howard responded as follows:

“Thank you Councillor Everett. I am somewhat surprised by your supplementary question as it appears to be pre-prepared and does not appear to relate to my response and appears to be politically motivated. I shall not be commenting on individual cases raised by the Councillor and, indeed, I am not familiar with them in great detail. I will however reiterate that the processes as I outlined in my original answer apply equally to all residents of Tendring and that the Councillors of this Authority will not be treated differently by this Authority than any other resident. Furthermore, you mentioned Standards and that does not fall within the remit of my Portfolio so in that instance I would refer to the Monitoring Officer to comment on that.”

The Council’s Monitoring Officer, Lisa Hastings, then confirmed that she would be happy to take this matter to the next meeting of the Standards Committee for a discussion as to whether that Committee wanted to include it within its work programme.

Question Two

From Councillor Jo Henderson to Councillor Giles Watling, Portfolio Holder for Planning and Regeneration:

“Could the Portfolio Holder for Planning, confirm that he is confident that there are enough resources to provide a responsive service to meet the needs of Councillors, Residents and Businesses within the Planning Enforcement department that he has responsibility for?”

Councillor Watling responded as follows:

“Thank you question, Councillor Henderson. It’s a touch of déjà vu here as you asked me a similar question on the fifth of July this year just over four months ago. But for the sake of clarity and to refresh your memory I’ll say it all again anyway. The Council’s planning enforcement powers are not an executive function that I am directly responsible for as the Portfolio Holder for Planning and Regeneration. This function is delegated, as I said before, to the Head of Planning, the excellent Cath Bicknell via the Council’s Planning Committee, chaired by the superb Councillor John White. With their concurrence though I am very happy to answer your query.

The answer to your question is, fundamentally, yes, I am confident that there is sufficient resource within the planning enforcement team to provide an appropriately responsive service. I have not had one complaint from any Officer at any time about a lack of resource. 

We all have to appreciate that investigations into planning breaches and achieving resolutions takes time and in some cases it is not achieved as quickly as the parties involved would wish. I am sure that you agree that we must not charge in with draconian measures that we later have to rescind having not taken care and consideration in the first place. That would be unfair, unjust and expensive to this Council. Reports are investigated and any breaches found are addressed. The action taken having regard to the Government’s guidance is designed to be proportionate to the nature of the breach. Informal resolution is sought whenever possible. We want to be responsible. Formal action is taken only where the informal resolution has not proved possible to achieve and the harm caused by the breach is serious.

The planning enforcement team receive hundreds of reports of potential breaches every year. I have a few figures for you. Between 1 April 2016 and 31 October 2016, 189 new cases have been received and 215 have been closed. In addition, 28 Enforcement Notices have been served and seven appeals against Enforcement Notices received. So we are ahead of the game. It almost goes without saying that additional resource within the Team might help deal with more cases quickly and that it is true of almost any actively that I can think of. But then again it might not and at what cost to the taxpayer. I am satisfied that the cases are investigated in line with the proportionate approach promoted by the Government’s guidance and cases are usually resolved through informal means.”

Councillor J Henderson then asked the following supplementary question:

“I thank the Portfolio Holder for his response. I am concerned for the workload on the Officers in the Planning department. I know that they have a very difficult job to do and I do feel that their resources are not enough at the moment. I know of other Councillors and residents who share concerns on responses to emails and telephone calls. Even in the Performance Report on the next Cabinet Agenda it states for Quarter 2 September that it’s behind target. May I ask what you intend to do about it?

Councillor Watling responded as follows:

“Thank you for your supplementary question. I refer you to the fact that I have not had one complaint from any Officer at any time about a lack of resource. I understand your concern about the workload and I refer you again to the figures that I just quoted.189 new cases have been received and 215 have been closed. In addition, 28 Enforcement Notices have been served and seven appeals against Enforcement Notices received. We are ahead of the game. I do not think that there is any need to adjust the workload that we have at this time.”