Payers of local taxes being cheated?

Theft in local government takes many forms, the most popularly portrayed examples being fraud perpetrated by the citizen. But are there other areas the spotlight might also shine?

Responding to a recent Audit Commission report – “Protecting the Public Purse – Local Government Fighting Fraud“ – Margaret Eaton, chairman of the Local Government Association, said:

“Councils are dedicated to bearing down on cheats to keep council tax as low as possible for the vast majority of honest, hard-working tax payers. The Audit Commission’s report is chock full of examples of town halls making sure their residents are not ripped off by fraudsters. One of the reasons the commission has been able to highlight some types of fraud as an issue is because of the hard work of many authorities which have tracked down cheats and taken action against them.”

Yup, fair enough. But consider that a private company hired to run many local authority functions – payroll, council tax, council benefits, etc – may also be a needless drain on the public purse.

Liberata is a company that administers services for Sheffield City Council. A major item in their wide portfolio is to deliver council tax and council benefits.

Liberata provides a phone number for citizens experiencing problems – often due to administrative errors – with council tax and benefits processing. The help line has been subject to much criticism from welfare law advisers in the city (trying to sort out their clients’ problems) as they rarely answered the phone.

Liberata, with apparent agreement from Sheffield City Council, deals with this issue by answering calls immediately. But, before the individual even has a chance to speak, a customer services assistant asks for a name and phone number then promises to ring back “within 24 hours”.

In my own experience of practising Legal Aid law, the return call was rarely made within such a time frame (and on some occasions not at all).

So the issues are:

• Why can’t Liberata help clients at times when they call?
• Why do they rarely answer within the claimed 24 hours?
• If they really can give a 24 hour reply, why can’t they catch up with backlog and then start dealing with queries in real time?

If a company receives money to deliver a service to a standard they can’t actually meet, are payers of local taxes not effectively being cheated?

[Via http://russellcavanagh.wordpress.com]