Did your council tax go up again? Here's why...

The Sun, Thurs April 13th

A BAILIFF was sent to an 80-year-old gran's council home to demand rent arrears of just FIVE PENCE.


How thick are the jobsworths at Wigan MBC? A spokesman said yesterday: “We apologise for any distress but we are currently having a strong push to reduce both the amount of rent arrears and the actual number of people in arrears.

“In terms of how our performance is measured it's also important to reduce the number of people in arrears, whatever the amount.â€Â

Well congratulations on pursuing your targets to the exclusion of all common sense. You've just spent £100's in admin costs to reclaim 5p. That's fantastic value for Wigan tax payers. Should we have any sympathy that the Govt wants to cut back your pensions? No, idiots like that deserve the sack for incompetance; not cushy public sector pay and benefits deals.

Is this how our hospitals are run, too?

 

they'll probably blame a computer for automating the response, when it would be relatively dimple to factor in the amount owed and for how long and react accordingly.
yes the health system is run along similar lines (much as i admire the nhs having lived in a country where medical aid is proportional to how much you can pay). my local doctor has had to institute a new apointments policy. basicly you can only get an apointment on the day so you have to phone early in the morning to make an apointment and if you don't phone in time or a larger number of people phone before you, you can't make one for the next day, you have to try again tomorrow. why? well, it means that according to the govornment, there is not no waiting list for that surgery and that's a good thing. the sooner that twunt blair is gone the better.
cheers


julian.

 

Sorry, but the baliff must have known how much he was supposed to go and collect, and should have thought "looking at this piece of paper for 3 seconds will cost more", let alone going around there.

Absurd, but all too common I fear. In oldham they took three goes to build some speed bumps. Looking around the place, they've had plenty of practice in building them, but it still took them three tries!

 

Bailiffs are third parties why would they give a toss how much they collecting

 

wearvalley district council are a bunch of clowns too - they spend all weerk messing around (this is the office workers at Crook) that they have to rely on weekend overtime to get their normal job done...

 

Julian
Your local doctor is screwing the system. He doesn't have to implement that appointmnet system at all. He's doing it cos he's coining in a massive salary with far too many patients on his books that he can't manage efficiently and has brought in his system to enable him to keep his £100K a year and conveniently blame someone else.

 

The really disgusting fact is that baliffs often compete to do council work FOC and the council system encourages it. They don't bill the council, they load the collection costs on top of the arrears.

"Hi, we're the baliffs. You owe the council 5p, plus £300 for us to come collect it."

 

If I was the baliff, I'd have coughed up the 5p myself and taken an hour off.

 

Me too