Issue - meetings

As detailed in the recommendation.

The Chief Officer, Community and Enterprise, presented the options for future Enforcement Agent (EA) action, following the approval of the taking control of goods regulations.

On 9 January 2014 a new fee structure was approved by Parliament and set significant increases on the current fees structure.  As the new fee structure was statutory, all EA’s would be required to comply with the charges which would become payable on the commencement of Bailiff action.

The increase in the potential recovery from people on low incomes required the provision of EA services to be considered within a context of a recovery process to ensure that collection levels were maximised whilst supporting people to pay and a review of the available options was detailed in the report.

A costing exercise demonstrated that developing an in-house service at Flintshire would result in a significantly higher return, with added re-assurance of maintaining a sound collection rate plus the benefits of added value services for vulnerable customers, whilst maintaining full control of the recovery process.

In response to a question from the Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Environment, the Chief Officer, Community and Enterprise re-emphasised that the fees were set by statute and not by the Council.  It was a very small number of cases that would require the use of bailiffs, which, if carried out by the Council could be done on a more individual basis in line with the anti poverty policy.

RESOLVED:

That the establishment of an internal Enforcement Agent Team be approved.