Bristow & Sutor / Leicester City Council Help needed ASAP!

[bluebottle]

Re: Bristow & Sutor / Leicester City Council Help needed ASAP!

It is becoming clearly evident that, after only three months, the new regulations are showing to be no more than the MoJ engaging in obfuscation and hoping the public have swallowed the spin that the new regulations are a reform of the civil enforcement industry hook, line and sinker. IMHO the new regulations are no more than an exercise in re-arranging the deckchairs on the Titanic as it sank to the bottom.

The MoJ have sold the public down the Swanee and those civil servants responsible for the dog's dinner they call "effective regulation" should pay with their jobs and index-linked pensions.

Bizzybob raised a very valid point about logging and collating incidents involving Collectica on another thread. This should be widened to include incidents involving all civil enforcement companies, especially where the civil enforcement companies engage in malpractice, and then made public once a reasonable number of incidents are logged.

[Wombats]

Re: Bristow & Sutor / Leicester City Council Help needed ASAP!

I agree. The Compliance Stage appears to be a total waste of time at the moment. The whole intent of the legislation is being bypassed by the enforcement companies finding every trick in the book to re-define 7 clear days notice.

Something HAS to be done to address this, and will be via a SI I suspect, but until such a time we need to know what to say to debtors and to enforcement companies so that the latter are forced as far as we can to abide by the regs and the former have chance to agree a realistic repayment plan. The councils tell the enforcement companies what they will and won't accept, so why not tell the debtors?

Could we find out the acceptable repayment plans with FOI requests?

[Wombats]

Re: Bristow & Sutor / Leicester City Council Help needed ASAP!

I can't agree with you there Bluebottle. I think they've tried very hard to get the regulations right and there are some significant teething troubles, inevitable given the extent of reform. Your comment about the MOJ is madness and civil servants (of whom you know I'm not a fan, and you know why!) help implement policy, they don't define it.

[bluebottle]

Re: Bristow & Sutor / Leicester City Council Help needed ASAP!

I can't agree with you there Bluebottle. I think they've tried very hard to get the regulations right and there are some significant teething troubles, inevitable given the extent of reform. Your comment about the MOJ is madness and civil servants (of whom you know I'm not a fan, and you know why!) help implement policy, they don't define it.

Sorry, Wombats, but I cannot agree with you. Civil servants help draft legislation, which is an area of concern. The problem is that the politicians who are the ministers and secretaries of state are not in office long enough to launch investigations into the activities of the civil servants in their respective departments. If they were, I think we would find that civil servants have a lot to answer for and a lot of explaining to do.

The regulations are, basically, a sop to the civil enforcement industry. If they were true reform, they would contain far stricter requirements on EAs, better protection for debtors, far more effective sanctions on EAs than retraining and a regulator with teeth that bite and a bite that hurts. As it stands, there is no regulator. And there needs to be some very searching questions asked as to why the police and judiciary have received little, if any, training in the new regulations or the law as it applies to civil enforcement.

[Wombats]

Re: Bristow & Sutor / Leicester City Council Help needed ASAP!

Sorry, Wombats, but I cannot agree with you. Civil servants help draft legislation, which is an area of concern. The problem is that the politicians who are the ministers and secretaries of state are not in office long enough to launch investigations into the activities of the civil servants in their respective departments. If they were, I think we would find that civil servants have a lot to answer for and a lot of explaining to do.

The regulations are, basically, a sop to the civil enforcement industry. If they were true reform, they would contain far stricter requirements on EAs, better protection for debtors, far more effective sanctions on EAs than retraining and a regulator with teeth that bite and a bite that hurts. As it stands, there is no regulator. And there needs to be some very searching questions asked as to why the police and judiciary have received little, if any, training in the new regulations or the law as it applies to civil enforcement.

We're well off the OP's thread here, but that is not correct. I agree entirely about a regulator with teeth. Training is not an issue with the legislation per se, it is down to its implementation. We said long ago it should be delayed until October, but it was never going to happen for political reasons.

The regs are not a sop the the civil enforcement industry however. They need a lot of tweaking, but the thrust of them is good. What the MOJ did not account for was how devious the EA's can be in circumnavigating legislation.

The civil service cannot be blamed for legislation that has been worked on and crafted by experts for many years, and ultimately passed several times through parliament.

[bizzybob]

Re: Bristow & Sutor / Leicester City Council Help needed ASAP!

We may need to help OP ground a complaint regarding the apparent intransigence of Brrundle & Slurpers in arranging an affordable plan, their worthless Control Order etc, as per BB and Wombats, I feel the new regulations are a crock of sh1t, and Sir Humphrey must have had something to do with it. What is clear is that the Compliance Stage is a chocolate fireguard, and the EA companies will be minded to apply all the fees to every account regardless, as in £75 +235+ £110 = £420 before they will come to any arrangement.

Hanging is too good for 'em imho As to the MOJ they need reminding at wvery opportunity that their reforms far from helping debtors has made things worse much worse for them.