For some weeks, prior to his major medical repairs from which I understand he is recovering well, North Snr has been tenacious in revealing the illegal fees councils permit their appointed bailiff companies to charge for recovery of council tax debt. Although his figures related to English companies, I'm sure Scottish companies are as guilty.
However, this is the thin edge of the wedge and is one of those cases in which compensation must be rewarded.
I consider this an attack upon these unsuspecting and innocent people.
At what point does this kind of attack become a perceived threat to life and be reasonably met with some form of armed resistance?
If they had used weapons to protect themselves against this invasion would they have been guilty of using undue force against those who refused to provide any form of identity?
Call Me Dave insists we should be able to protect ourselves from those who attempt or succeed upon entering our homes illegally. The treatment meted out to the labrador surely deserves at least an apology.
Thankfully no such action concerning bailiffs has yet been reported in Scotland. Let that remain so.
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The whole system is archaic in the extreme, but there are too many making money off it ,all the usual suspects and a few not so usual, but the bad thing immediately is that the perpetrators are getting away with misrepresenting the law and miss-using the law due partly to ignorance on the part of the public and cynical deliberate missuse on the part of authorities and others who know they can get away with it. There is an incredible amount of money being scammed off people, and no attempt being made to clean this up !
I suppose the answer is for everyone not to pay fees Apogee. Then courts will be over-run and councils will have to come clean about their various charging systems.
One of the side effects of the introduction of Local Housing Allowance and the cuts imposed through benefits cuts is the effect they have on council tax rebates for those who are legitimately in need.
By the introduction of the 30% percentile valuation, those in receipt of housing benefit are not only having their benefits reduced by, in many cases 50%, their outgoings on council tax liability have been increased by 400%.
This factor has been introduced by stealth and never featured in the report placed before parliament under the Social Security Welfare Reforms Act 2006.
While I'm all for the DWP sorting out the fraudsters, if they had any claim to competence they would weed those out when the claim is first made.
However, in my experience of trying to help people submit legitimate claims, the mantra of the DWP is to be obstructive in order to undercut any benefit rightfully due.
Such an attitude creates a mountain of bureaucratic inertia which diverts attention and resources and ultimately increases administration costs - but is that not par for the course of civil service values?
Good points there Crinkly and sensible too, but that doesn't seem to be the way our public services operate does it.
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