House of Lords Questions – Bailiff fee Commission paid to local authorities

[outlawla]

It's borked on the site

 

The link on the site includes an invisible space (at the end) I noticed. Clear that and it works.

[brassnecked]

The link on the site includes an invisible space (at the end) I noticed. Clear that and it works.

Thanks outlawla

[tomtubby]

With fees being capped at £70 the local authorities will of course ensure that the "capped" figure is the one that they use. Not a penny less.

 

The obvious question is WHY the same amendment has nit been introduced for England & Wales???

[tomtubby]

Outlawla

 

Excellent research as always.

 

WELL DONE !!!

[brassnecked]

Outlawla never fails to amaze with his research.

[outlawla]

With fees being capped at £70 the local authorities will of course ensure that the "capped" figure is the one that they use. Not a penny less.

 

The obvious question is WHY the same amendment has nit been introduced for England & Wales???

 

It might sound simplistic, but you could argue that if a cap has been put at £70, the maximum can only apply to local authorities with the least population, i.e., where the costs to profit ratio is higher because of fewer summonses auto-generated through the council's software packages.

 

A blog article "A National Scandal" addresses these issues, and a contributor puts forward a theory that the size of an authority determines the level of costs that council incurs (disproportionately).

 

The post "28 June 2013 10:52" when read in conjunction with the earlier "26 June 2013 03:52" compares two authorities to demonstrate the point that the much larger, Portsmouth City Council, has to be creative, to a greater degree with its accounting methods to disguise the income it generates through taking its residents to court.

Edited July 2, 2013 by outlawla

[HCEOs]

With fees being capped at £70 the local authorities will of course ensure that the "capped" figure is the one that they use. Not a penny less.

 

The obvious question is WHY the same amendment has nit been introduced for England & Wales???

 

TT, out of interest what are the average costs for this in England currently?

[tomtubby]

HCEO,

 

Bl..dy interesting question!! Where to start....

 

Over the past 6 years or so I have raised a lot of questions regarding these fees. It is difficult to come up with an "average" ( and even more so given that so many councils have INCREASED the costs in the past few years). Worryingly, from a lot of the figures that I have received, most councils charge a significantly increased amount for Non Domestic Rates.

 

The figures vary considerably and range from £70 to £125 and for Non Domestic Rates the figures can be as high as £225.

 

The Magistrates Court used to charge the local authorities 70p for each Liability Order but this was increased about 4 years ago to £3.

 

Given that approx 3.2 million Liability Orders are granted each year the amount of revenue that the councils obtain from taking legal action is immense. If all councils are forced to cap the fees at £70 the revenue will be around £200 million !!!

[HCEOs]

I suppose the next question is what are the actual labour costs to the Council?