By Carmelo Garcia – Local Democracy Reporter
A Gloucestershire council got a taste of its own medicine when a bailiff turned up at their offices seeking money owed to a resident.
Enforcement agents are often used by local authorities in seeking unpaid council tax after initial reminders are ignored.
But roles were reversed in November when a bailiff visited Forest of Dean District Council’s offices in Coleford seeking to obtain debt owed to a resident.
Payment was sought for costs linked to one of the 93 planning and enforcement appeals the authority has lost over the last seven years.
Councillor Bernie O’Neill (Progressive Independents, Ruspidge) raised the “shocking situation” at last night’s (December 11) full council meeting which heard how there are seven other cases outstanding.
He asked the council leader to confirm that bailiffs had to attend in order to obtain one set of costs “due to the council not paying costs awarded against it for planning appeals”.
The case must be rectified immediately, Cllr O’Neill added.
He said: “Non-payment of council tax by residents is taken very seriously and non-payment of debts by the council should be taken as seriously, if not more so!”
Council leader Adrian Birch (G, Tidenham) confirmed in a written answer that an enforcement agent visited the council last month and left after a short discussion with officers from legal services.
“The agent took no action against the council,” he said.
Cllr Birch also said that there have been 318 appeals against decisions to refuse planning permission or to issue enforcement notices in the Forest of Dean over the last seven years.
A total of 93 were successful, meaning the appellant won their case, and a total of 13 cases saw costs awarded to the appellants.
“In some of these cases, the applicants appear to have delayed submitting their claims for more than two years after the planning inspectorate’s decision,” his response reads.
“It appears that seven of the claims submitted remain outstanding and the reason for this is the council does not accept the amount of costs claimed and negotiations are ongoing.
“The point that the council should take payment of its debts at least as seriously as residents take paying their council tax is a valid one.
“We also take the view that we owe a duty to those same council tapayers to question claims for payment from public funds if appellants submit them with no evidence of the costs incurred or where the amount sought appears disproportionate to the work carried out.”
However, Cllr O’Neill told the meeting he had evidence to the contrary and that a bailiff had visited the council more than once and taken payment.
He suggested an emergency investigation should be set up to look into costs affecting the planning department over the last seven years.
“I have received several phone calls and emails from local residents with a great deal of information which are counter to his answers and, in fact, contradictory,” he said.
“An enforcement agent visited the council on more than one occasion and I’m led to believe actually did take a payment.”
He told the meeting he has received evidence that fully itemised claims have been submitted to the council and “possible negotiations are stalled, not ongoing”.
“I also have evidence in the form of emails regarding correspondence with officers. I’m not going to go into any further details on this but I am really concerned about this situation.”
Monitoring officer Helen Clarke said she drafted the response to Cllr O’Neill after looking at the council’s statistics.
“I’m satisfied that it is truthful and I’m also satisfied, having personal knowledge of the cases, that the answer is accurate,” she said.
Chief executive Nigel Brinn said it was a reasonable request to ask for an investigation and suggested it could be a matter for the audit committee.