Single Persons Discount Review and Capita

[Feebee_71]

I've received a letter from Capita, on behalf of my local council, regarding a review of my single persons discount for council tax. Capita are clear in the letter that they have been employed by my local council to carry out the review and tha it is being done from their offices in Bromley and is being carried out independently of the local council - for what it's worth, the letter has about 8 different councils logo's at the top of the letter and mine is one of them, the letter was sent from/with an undelivered return address in Bromley and the freepay envelope is addressed to Bromley so it's clearly been outsourced for this purpose - as far as I know my council does not outsource it's back room work to Capita.

 

I recognise that councils have to review these matters in case residents 'forget' to update their eligibility for the discount and I'm happy to reply by completing the enclosed form - simply a tick box either I'm still entitled or I'm not entitled, a section to put details of any person who stays regularly but does not consider the property to be their primary/main residence and a section for giving details of anyone aged 17 or under for whom the property is their primary/main residence. In the 8+ years I've lived in this property I've had house guests once so, don't have a partner (not even absent) and only spend 1/2 the week here myself due to staying with an elderly relative who is in poor health and we don't want on their own overnight. I am also out of the place from 7am-8pm on the days I am 'here'!!

 

What I don't want is Crapita holding my data for any other purpose than to pass on to my local council that I have completed the declaration. Purely and simply I don't trust them as far as I could throw them but can't afford for my SPD to be cancelled as I barely afford my C. Tax each month as it is. Am I within my right to add to their letter that I do not authorise Crapita to hold or use my personal data for any other purpose than to pass on to my local council?

 

In an effort to further protect myself I have altered my signature on the letter to identify it as only coming from that source if it appears anywhere else, I have refused to give either my hone number or my email address as I don't see how they are relevant or required for the information they have been instructed to gather!!

 

Feebee_71

[Feebee_71]

No-one able to offer any advice?

 

Feebee_71

[outlawla]

Is there any help on this thread?

 

Council tax single persons discount review experian equifax etc

[Feebee_71]

Thanks Outlawla, it is helpful. Still want to know if I'm within my rights to put on the form that I deny Crapita permission to hold or process my data for Ny purpose other than the processing of this form??

 

Feebee_71

[renegadeimp]

Youll find that Crapita are contracted to run the council back offices. So all paperwork is managed by them. Therefore, they have your info anyway as they have legally been contracted by the council to deal with the info.

[Feebee_71]

Renegadeimp,

 

Do you know if there is a list of which councils have contracted Crapita to run their back offices? I'm not sure if my council does!

 

Feebee_71

[renegadeimp]

If you get a lettee from the coubcil mentioning them, then capita do the back office work.

[outlawla]

Have a look on this spreadsheet: Revenue Collection Statistics 2011-12.

 

Select "Main Statistics" tab at the bottom of the spreadsheet

 

Check your council against the heading "Name of Provider Where Contracted Out", Column 129.

[sillygirl1]

Surely there must be a limit as to how many councils can employ one single PARENT company (including its many subsidiaries) to do its back room work.

 

I think the stranglehold Capita are getting needs to be thoroughly investigated and if any MPs are directly involved as 'consultants' in their subsidiary companies they should automatically be investigated as to their lobbying patterns.

[DollyDagger]

I may be able to help here.

 

Capita provide various services to local councils relating to discounts and benefits, and by all accounts they make an appalling job of it.

 

If they are acting as the 'agent' for the council then they can do lots of stuff and collect lots of data.

 

These 'discount reviews' were started as far as one can tell by the credit reference firm Experian Ltd of Nottingham and they have maladministration and misinformation built into them from the outset.

 

The thing to check is whether Bromley provide reasonable information about the basis on which you are receiving your discount.

 

You should be aware that in law you are NOT claiming to live alone, and nor should the council have issued your bill on the assumption that you were living alone. Your legal position is that you are receiving a discount of the appropriate percentage (currently set at 25%) on the assumption that the same rate applies on every day of the tax year covered by the demand notice (ie the bill). This rate applies on any day when only one adult who counts (ie is not disregarded because a student, apprentice etc) has his or her sole or main residence at the address in question.

 

Bromley like many other councils provides misleading information on its web site. It lists the categories of people who do not count as different discounts each with its own application form. This implies that there is a 'single person discount' distinct from these disregard discounts, which is not how the law works.

 

Please post a copy of the 'review' form you have been sent so that we can comment on whether the information on it correctly reflects the legal position. Far too many councils send out forms which do not, and this is something that needs tackling sooner rather than later.

[Feebee_71]

DollyDagger,

 

I don't have a copy of the form as the original had to be sent back to Bromley. I've heard nothing else so assume they have accepted my form with the information I deem to be required - contact information such as phone number and email address are irrelavent to Capita so were not given.

 

Feebee_71

[Feebee_71]

Also, according to the spreadsheet posted by Outlawla, my local council don't contract out their back room to Crapita!!

 

Feebee_71

[DollyDagger]

I've received a letter from Capita, on behalf of my local council, regarding a review of my single persons discount for council tax. Capita are clear in the letter that they have been employed by my local council to carry out the review and tha it is being done from their offices in Bromley and is being carried out independently of the local council - for what it's worth, the letter has about 8 different councils logo's at the top of the letter and mine is one of them, the letter was sent from/with an undelivered return address in Bromley and the freepay envelope is addressed to Bromley so it's clearly been outsourced for this purpose - as far as I know my council does not outsource it's back room work to Capita.

 

I recognise that councils have to review these matters in case residents 'forget' to update their eligibility for the discount and I'm happy to reply by completing the enclosed form - simply a tick box either I'm still entitled or I'm not entitled, a section to put details of any person who stays regularly but does not consider the property to be their primary/main residence and a section for giving details of anyone aged 17 or under for whom the property is their primary/main residence. In the 8+ years I've lived in this property I've had house guests once so, don't have a partner (not even absent) and only spend 1/2 the week here myself due to staying with an elderly relative who is in poor health and we don't want on their own overnight. I am also out of the place from 7am-8pm on the days I am 'here'!!

 

What I don't want is Crapita holding my data for any other purpose than to pass on to my local council that I have completed the declaration. Purely and simply I don't trust them as far as I could throw them but can't afford for my SPD to be cancelled as I barely afford my C. Tax each month as it is. Am I within my right to add to their letter that I do not authorise Crapita to hold or use my personal data for any other purpose than to pass on to my local council?

 

In an effort to further protect myself I have altered my signature on the letter to identify it as only coming from that source if it appears anywhere else, I have refused to give either my hone number or my email address as I don't see how they are relevant or required for the information they have been instructed to gather!!

 

Feebee_71

 

 

Data given to the aptly named Crapita can be shared widely a) for the assessment and collection of any tax or b) for the prevention and detection of crime - or even to assist in the prevention and detection of crime, which includes statistically based exercises in which pools of suspects for investigation are drawn up using statistical methods of various sorts (if you believe the Audit Commission). Councils are not supposed to collect information which is excessive for the purpose so I don't suuppose the phone number is excessive.

 

It has to be made clear that there is no obligation at all on the taxpayer to 'update their eligibility' ie to tell the council of any changes in circumstances or if the basis for their eligibility changes during the tax year. I mention this because so many councils falsely tell people that they can issue civil penalties when this is not true in respect of discounts. The only exception might be in respect of a person who is jointly and severally liable, ie usually a joint tenant or live in partner.

 

Discount reviews are fraud investigations masquerading as 'reviews'.

 

Capita standard letters are everywhere on the internet and are moral and grammatical and legal gibberish. So are the accounts of these on council web sites eg

 

http://revsandbens.centralsussex.gov.uk/council_tax/358.htm

 

This alleges that the review is an investigation into discrepancies. It is perfectly legal to receive a 'single person discount' when more than one resident is resident. The use of the term 'discrepancy' is at best sloppy and at worst reflects underlying maladministration and injustice

 

Hope you find this helpful. I attach a briefing on council tax law prepared by the Audit Commission legal department, in response to complaints about the same sort of nonsense in an annual report it produced some years ago. You can see they say their report could more accurately reflect the law and was less than ideal (an understatement I suppose!). However similar and even more prejudicial information continues to be published by the Commission despite promises to publish 'more comprehensive' accounts of the matter in the future. I have come to believe that when they say 'more comprehensive' they mean 'less economical with the truth'.

 

Interesting to discuss.

 

Well I have tried to attach it but it may not work. All the best

[renegadeimp]

Please convert the doc to a pdf. Doc files contain personal information encoded in its headers.

[DollyDagger]

Please convert the doc to a pdf. Doc files contain personal information encoded in its headers.

 

Second attempt

[DollyDagger]

The point is that has come to be a common practice that it is only when people have been identified as a 'risk' or even a 'high risk' are review letters sent out. On that basis the fact that you have been sent a review letter suggests that you have been identified by data mining/statistically based inference to be a risk of not being entitled. Did your letter threaten to cancel if you didn't reply to it? The implications of this are clear enough. I am not saying this is definitely the case in respect of your council, though I think that it is.

 

http://www.capita-softwareandmanagedservices.co.uk/partnerships/Documents/Brochure_SPD_April%202013_FINAL.pdf

 

 

This document is thoroughly misleading. There is no requirement to carry out an SPD verification check. In fact an SPD as this document represents it has no existence in law. My understanding is that it was invented by Experian Ltd of Nottingham, in around 2006, and that this was done largely so that Experian could make money out of the full electoral register, having never recovered from or accepted the findings of the Robertson decision limiting the ways it could make money out of this document. So they came up with this, and here I use a term subjectively, [problem] to make money out of it. They use it to check whether a discount which does not exist as they describe it actually applies. The contracts usually have disclaimers in so that if the sh** hits the fan the council takes all the liabillity. Until somebody is able to get a judicial review, it seems that it is hard to put a stop to it, except by sticking to your rights and insisting on civil tribunals, the only pathway available.

 

 

What is appalling about this is that Capita claim to be able to 'identify fraud'. A private business apparrently takes it upon itself to decide whether people are guilty of a serious crime of dishonesty, and without any right to an appeal or a trial, and presumably they do this in secret so that you do not even know. And councils go 'Yeah, right, that's a good idea'. Let's create a society like that.

 

Returning to your question about sharing information, my information is that such information can be shared via various anti fraud networks. They call in 'intelligence'. If this were the NFI they would be telling your boss that you had been on a hit list before any investigation had been carried out, merely on the basis of the data mining output.

 

And the irony is that it is PERFECTLY LEGAL TO RECEIVE A SINGLE PERSON DISCOUNT IF MORE THAN ONE ADULT IS RESIDENT. Heaven only knows what Capita's criteria for deciding that you are committing fraud. Let's hope they don't privatise the police because this is what we have to look forward to. In effect they have privatised crime investigation and prevention and it is a nightmare with hundreds of years of progress towards justice, and the right to a fair trial being undermined.

 

 

You can see why councils fall for this sort of marketing material, though if the back office boys knew their council tax law properly alarm bells would be ringing.

 

When Capita (or more specifically Equifax the credit reference company whose data banks of personal data are used) believe that there might be more than one resident they send out review letters, also known as investigation letters. One is required to eliminate oneself from the investigation by 'explaining' whatever evidence they have against you. If you return the form confirming that you literally live alone, they take this as very suspicious, and, indeed, complaining is also taken to be 'unreasonable' and also potential evidence of fraud as only the guilty have anything to fear when data is shared or these investigations take place.

 

Here is a typical Capita account of the exercise. They use Equifax but my understanding is that Experian invented this sort of 'product' and was the first that started mis selling it to councils.

 

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/30742/response/84490/attach/3/SPD%20Review%204.5.10.JPG.jpg

 

If the record show that they are receiving a discount 'as they live alone' the records should be amended to accurately reflect the basis on which they should, in accordance with council tax discount law, be receiving their discount. This is explained in various legal briefings prepared by the Audit Commission, which have been in the public domain for some time.

 

It is not even a civil penalty, leave alone an offence not to declare a person who lives in their household, so you can see that Capita are probably assuming that people are frauds in cases where there is no actus reus and no mens rea. T Gaffney of Capita should check his facts!

 

 

 

My gripe with these is that misrepresentation of your legal position is at their heart. The law requires all 25% discounted notices to be issued on the assumption that the same rate of discount will apply on every day of the coming year. Nobody is receiving the discount on the basis that they live alone. Entitlement only ceases when another adult who is not disregarded has their sole or main residence at the address.

 

 

Your records should not show that you are receiving a discount 'because you live alone' and there is no requirement for councils to keep a register of residents at houses where they have issued the bill on the assumption that a 25% discount will apply on every day of the coming year. It is the personal data merchants who made all this up, doing so presumably because they make money out of it.

 

My gripe about all this is that councils should comply with the law and not flout or misrepresent it and that their agents ought to follow suit.

 

 

I've received a letter from Capita, on behalf of my local council, regarding a review of my single persons discount for council tax. Capita are clear in the letter that they have been employed by my local council to carry out the review and tha it is being done from their offices in Bromley and is being carried out independently of the local council - for what it's worth, the letter has about 8 different councils logo's at the top of the letter and mine is one of them, the letter was sent from/with an undelivered return address in Bromley and the freepay envelope is addressed to Bromley so it's clearly been outsourced for this purpose - as far as I know my council does not outsource it's back room work to Capita.

 

I recognise that councils have to review these matters in case residents 'forget' to update their eligibility for the discount and I'm happy to reply by completing the enclosed form - simply a tick box either I'm still entitled or I'm not entitled, a section to put details of any person who stays regularly but does not consider the property to be their primary/main residence and a section for giving details of anyone aged 17 or under for whom the property is their primary/main residence. In the 8+ years I've lived in this property I've had house guests once so, don't have a partner (not even absent) and only spend 1/2 the week here myself due to staying with an elderly relative who is in poor health and we don't want on their own overnight. I am also out of the place from 7am-8pm on the days I am 'here'!!

 

What I don't want is Crapita holding my data for any other purpose than to pass on to my local council that I have completed the declaration. Purely and simply I don't trust them as far as I could throw them but can't afford for my SPD to be cancelled as I barely afford my C. Tax each month as it is. Am I within my right to add to their letter that I do not authorise Crapita to hold or use my personal data for any other purpose than to pass on to my local council?

 

In an effort to further protect myself I have altered my signature on the letter to identify it as only coming from that source if it appears anywhere else, I have refused to give either my hone number or my email address as I don't see how they are relevant or required for the information they have been instructed to gather!!

 

Feebee_71

Edited December 3, 2013 by DollyDagger

[DollyDagger]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]48004[/ATTACH][ATTACH]48004[/ATTACH]

 

This legal briefing and the alarming position of the NFI on the ways in which it can use data mining to get people investigated for fraud even though there is nothing suspicious in their position may be useful to forum users.

 

It was produced by the Legal Department of the Audit Commission. It came to light via an F of I request. My understanding is that the Commission wrote to the complainant in different terms, and avoided using the words 'could more accurately reflect' and 'inaccuracies'. One wonders why this might be. Any ideas?

 

It refers to complaints about an annual report published by the Audit Commission. The Commission promised to publish more comprehensive explanations of this exercise in future, a promise which it has signally failed, in my honest and informed opinion, to keep.

 

The other main sources of information are the valuation tribunal guide to council tax law, and some of their cases relate to people whose discounts have been improperly cancelled following Capita/NFI type 'reviews'; and also the case law on sole or main reference as here

 

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2004/39.html

 

This makes it clear that a council using the electoral register to decide where anybody lives would be flouting the decisions of the courts, known as 'case law'.

 

In addition councils telling people they are receiving a 25% discount because they live alone (ie not with any disregarded adults) are providing inaccurate information, which is maladministration as outlined on the web site of the Local Government Ombudsman.

 

So this is cause for complaint.

 

The pdf I attach here was posted on line by the Audit Commission some time ago. I imagine that this complainant was quite pleased to find that the Audit Commission upheld her complaint. The addressees appear to be closely involved with the National Fraud Initiative which published the document about which the complaint was made. One can only wonder what internal discussions and panic might have followed from the realization that they had made a boo boo!

 

 

The pdf is already in the public domain (put there by the Audit Commission) though not easy to find unless you know where to look.

 

It is an important document which you should be considering sending to your council and to your MP next time you get a discount review letter such as those used by Crapita and the other firms making money out of this business, though at the heart of it are the credit reference firms who use automated processing to produce estimates of how many people are 'living' at your address.

 

My understanding is that following this, the complainant found that in order to get information from the Audit Commission it was necessary to go all the way to an F of I tribunal. You can trace this via F of I Tribunal and Information Commission web sites. One has to wonder why the Audit Commission got so oddly cautious about responding to F of I requests, and whether this was because it did not want to drop itself into any more mess, but it is worth noting that unless one had been made this admission would never have come to light!

 

May I say finally that I object to anybody not paying the tax they should be paying, but that I also support the rule of law, including council tax law, and that I believe that councils should a) act in accordance with the requirements of the law and b) refrain from providing taxpayers with false and misleading information about that law.

Edited December 3, 2013 by DollyDagger