Single Person Discount Review

You may receive a 'review letter' from your council saying something like the following:  'Our records show that you are receiving a discount as you live alone.  We are required to verify whether you are still entitled to this discount'.  

The councils records cannot properly show that a situation which cannot arise in law applies to your finances.  You are, or should be, receiving a discount of the appropriate amount on the assumption that the same rate will apply on every day of the coming year.  If there is more than one entitled voter resident or if another person uses your address as a 'care of' address, this is in itself perfectly legal and does not constitute an irregularity. What would constitute an irregularity would be if there were two of you living there as your main home, and neither of you were disregarded.  In which case you would owe the council more tax as the discount would not apply. But the odds are overwhelming that a person in receipt of one of these investigation letters is not guilty of any wrong-doing. 

Beware of promising to inform the council if anybody moves in to your property. You have no such duty in law, but at least one council deliberately misleads people as to their obligations in this respect and several falsely state that not doing this means the council can penalise you.  There are even council web pages which state that it is an offence and that you can be 'fined'.

Your council ought not to be providing you with false or misleading information, and such letters are valid grounds for complaints on the grounds of maladministration.  

You might also ask your MP to write to Brandon Lewis asking him why he is providing incorrect information on official notepaper in this way,  especially given the messages put out by his predecessor Bob Neill.  

A good, if incomplete, research review of council tax discount law, dated early 2009 may be obtained from the Audit Commission and is also available on the Internet.

NB  Dishonestly making false or misleading statements to obtain a financial gain can amount to fraud and should in all circumstances be avoided!  

Andy Sawford and the Audit Commission

Andy Sawford seems to be a nice chap but he is naive.

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmpublic/localaudit/131119/am/131119s01.htm

In the debate on the Local Audit Bill, he says that he is putting forward amendments which the Audit Commission wants.   These are amendments which even the government has rejected.  I suppose that for a politician taking a position suggested by an Audit Commission looks like a safe bet.  The problem is that the Audit Commission is a strategic and political organisation with an agenda that goes far beyond mere audit functions.   It is of course, also a business, which has 'commercial' interests in getting the powers to require councils to buy its products.  Not many businesses have such instant access to public funds.  One has to look for the sub text.

One cannot of course assume that word for word Mr Sawford is merely parroting Audit Commission briefings or policies but it is depressing to see how his words show lack of understanding of how the NFI actually works.

the Audit Commission has a wide range of powers, some of which it has used to good effect; its appointed power to ensure that bodies subject to data matching follow up on data-matching exercises could be lost

The Audit Commission has no powers at all to make councils 'follow up' matches which are risk-based or which indicate no fraud, error or maladministration.  There is nothing to follow up.  Moreover, some councils have pointed out that the costs of following up on hit lists with high false positive rates outweighs the income.  Indeed, at one point the Commission stated that councils had  a 'moral duty' to investigate anybody it decided might not be entitled to a council tax discount.  Really? Maybe they have a 'moral duty' not to pester, intimidate and misinform taxpayers in line with the 'good practice' guidelines produced by the Audit Commission.

Mr Sawford may not be aware that on the CT discount 'high risk' matches the Audit Commission has stated a view that a council has a 'moral duty' to investigate people it thinks 'might not' be entitled to their discount, even though there is no evidence of fraud, error or maladministration.  This is political, not purely financial.   Do politicians never learn that they are not the only ones scoring political points?

Game set and match to the Audit Commission.


One can only hope that Mr Sawford gets subjected to a fraud investigation on such a basis, and that all his future potential employers and bankers are told that he was found to be a fraud risk.  Because this is how, quite blithely, he is encouraging the NFI to behave.  And of course they won't have bothered to say this in their briefings.  Indeed, their local representatives are blithely making false allegations about people all over the country and putting these on line.

When Mr Sawford says that there will be no power to ensure that councils follow up on matches and that such powers currently exist, he is talking through his hat, and basing his arguments on false beliefs, which are positively and actively encouraged by the Audit Commission, about how the whole thing works.

What does the Minister say

Discussion on the arrangements for the governance of the national fraud initiative will continue with representation from interested parties.

These won't include any of the hundreds of thousands of innocent people who have been subjected to unlawful 'investigations' by councils following the false legal guidance put out by Experian and since then other bodies.  But it will include the credit reference agencies which make money out of the whole  thing!  

You have to fall about laughing when Mr Sawford goes on to mention maladministration and auditor powers to deal with this.  The Audit Commission actively encourages maladministration as Mr Brandon Lewis's own comments have made clear.  It is the tail which wags the dog.  The chances of it accepting publicly its own massive and long-standing administrative errors are null.  When told by its own legal department that something could more accurately reflect the law and is less than ideal, it in effect ignores it and carries on telling the same old lies about people as it did before, with the effect that credulous people relying on its advice then go on to administer people's financial affairs in ways which flout the law.   Heads of Revenue Services stating that the council tax regulations are 'wrong' are merely stating explicitly the way things have been working since Experian and the other data merchants got the Audit Commission on in its Act.  The NFI cannot put its own house in order and the government intends to let these people loose on even more data.

THe Government says that discussions on the governance of the NFI are underway.  My view is that if the NFI gets its way there won't be any governance of it.  It will produce a code giving it free rein to use data mining to finger people as fraud investigation targets on an evidence-free basis.  The abortive investigations and false positives will continue. It may even continue to modify its own code while not even bothering to give the Minister a copy of the amendment to lay before Parliament.  Would or would not this amount to a deception of Parliament?  I think it would.

The rejection of this amendment is a good sign, as otherwise the NFI could broaden the data it gets its hands on and also pretend even more appallingly than ever that fraud suspects are not fraud suspects.

A small ray of hope, perhaps.

NFI for maladministration and error

Given that the NFI actively spreads misunderstanding of council tax discount law, it is ironic that somebody thought fit to give it the power to use data matching to identify maladministration and error.  It is already asserting that maladministration and error exists where there is no such thing: this is precisely how its figures for council tax discounts fraudulently or erroneously awarded are compiled, by including large numbers of cases where there was no maladministration or error and, therefore, no additional income.

A body which has since at least 2006 misinterpreted codes on council tax computer systems is not trustworthy to decide whether there has been maladministration.

Who decided that the Audit Commission had 'wider powers' to use data matching for this purpose?  It appears to be the case that the Audit Commission believes that it already has these powers.  But they cannot be an audit function unless the maladministration involves some breaching of financial regulations.  So where do they come from?  Those proposing this amendment to the Local Audit Bill must h

The government response was that this function would overlap with the functions of the Local Government Ombudsman and there would be no powers to act upon it.  So it would cause duplication and be unnecessary.  It was concerned about how the powers might be used.  Well for once, good for the government.

It is controversial to say that data matching powers used in the capacity under audit powers would not be available to new bodies: they would be available to auditors who have the right to inspect documents and information relating to the accounts of audited bodies.  This must come from the data matching businesses who fear losing a stream of income which they had via the Audit Commission.  

Members seem utterly naive about the capacities of 'data matching'.  These have been displayed in the Cabinet Office's own attempts to use data matching and data mining to get the electoral register up to date. The research report highlighted lack of understanding of the data by those using it as a major issue.

One billion pounds worth of fraud, error and maladministration.  This is a lot of money they say.  But they are thinking that this is money lost to the public purse.  A great deal of this will not be money lost as it includes cases where a single person discount which does not exist is cancelled and replaced by a 'disregard discount allowance' which does not exist either.

Prediction as to the future

The government will make regulations insisting that councils subject people to fraud investigations even though there is nothing inconsistent in their situation.  It will make councils suspect innocent people of fraud using the full electoral register via its new powers to make regulations.  The NFI tail will wag the dog.

This is the conclusion to be drawn after listening to the debate on the local audit and accountability bill, especially the clause giving the power to the minister to make regulations

The NFI rules the world.   Pity it is incompetent and corrupt.

Alan Bryce

Mr Bryce is the 'author' of the 2012 edition of Protecting the Public Purse.

In this he refers to the NFA publication 'Fighting Fraud Locally'.  We have met the NFA before.  Their person in charge of local government said she hadn't read any council tax law, which may explain why she believes that the electoral  register if 'up to date' is a reliable guide to entitlement to a 'single person discount'.

However you define this, this belief is wrong and unjustifiable.  So thanks Mr Bryce for referring us to a bad source.   The NFA's ideas on good practice are limited and in places positively harmful.

On your Masters they will have taught you to take 'grey literature' with a pinch of salt.  In a position of power and authority working for a government agency, similar principles should apply.

In respect of council tax, this publication includes a 'case study' which repeats the false assertions about 'single person discounts' which the Audit Commission Legal Department scotched some years ago: namely that certain people are receiving a discount on the basis that they live alone.  This is probably an Experian based exercise or a clone, such as those run by Capita, Northgate and so on.

According to Mr Bryce's own figures, data from over 25, 000 people was sent to the agency with this legally inaccurate information.

Well done Mr Bryce: not many people can make false statements about as many people as you did all in one fell swoop.  The case study goes on to state that cases where there was an indication that there was dual or multiple occupancy were contacted.  Why?  It is perfectly proper to receive a discount if more than one adult is resident.  Some people are said to have admitted to no longer being liable, and , on the usual but legally false allegations used by the NFI these people will be counted as 'additional income' though most of them will have been entitled to their discount.  It's just that when the NFI sticks a different label on them it counts them as 'not entitled' or as a case of fraud or error.

Mr Bryce praises Gravesham Council.  If he bothered to read the documentation provided to taxpayers within that council, he would note that it conflicts with the legal briefing on council tax law which he uses as a reference: you know, the one that was produced in response to complaints and which was circulated for future reference.   Or perhaps nobody bothered to give young Mr Bryce a copy of that legal briefing? Has it been hidden where nobody can see it and put two and two together, perhaps?  

Whereas that briefing points out that there is no duty to report changes in circumstances per se, Gravesham tells people that there is and that they may be liable to pay a penalty of £70 if they don't.  Well done Mr Bryce for once again encouraging malpractice in local government.

Well done Mr Bryce.  This sort of praise proves the point made over and over that the NFI actively encourages bad practice.   Well done.  Who want the rule of law anyway?  Who wants due process and privacy and all that tosh!  Spread misinformation and suspicion about innocent entitled people.  Climate of mistrust.  You can't trust anybody, especially government agencies: they're the worst for not getting their facts right.

This sort of thing isn't good practice, Mr Bryce.  Far from it.  Please obtain the legal briefing on council tax discount law provided for the information and future reference of your own department and read it.

Failure to do this would be unacceptable, as, it seems to me, you ought to be familiar with the laws governing the legal frameworks around local government finance, whereas this report strongly suggests that you are not.


Thank you.

Transparency International UK

This organisation needs to be shot (joke!!)

Their report is hugely amusing.

It refers to various Audit Commission activities and data mining uncritically, and one may suspect that the people actually believe that the AC spreads knowledge about 'good practice'.  This is questionable. Given that councils actively refuse to apply council tax regulations on the basis that the Audit Commission won't let them, somebody is having the wool pulled over their eyes.

I think they ought to call for an investigation of 'corruption' within the Audit Commission. Why for example, are Audit Commission staff  apparently ignoring the legal briefing prepared some years ago spelling out the facts of council tax discount law?  Whether this results from fraud or error or has another explanation, it is difficult to say.  But it is an apparent inconsistency requiring investigation!

3. Understanding and awareness of fraud and corruptionThe Audit Commission previously collected and published data, allowing it to trace patterns and trends in corruption and fraud. If the Commission is abolished, it will be difficult to know whether councils are detecting more or less corruption and fraud, or engaging in better or weaker monitoring and prevention activities.Recommendation: Notwithstanding the localism agenda, it is critical that some element of central oversight is restored. At a minimum, this should involve data collection and consistent standards.

Well since the NFI's statistics have been unprofessional, worthless, prejudicial and based on incompetence I for one wouldn't mind seeing the back of them.

At a select committee discussion on contracting out and the problems of monitoring contracts, this organisation was present.  All the time I felt the irony that firms like Capita. Experian and so on are taking money for carrying out council duties arising under Regulation 14 of the Council Tax Administration and Enforcement Regulations and doing this in flagrant breach of the regulations themselves.  They misrepresent Regulation 14 as a duty to check a 'claim' which has no legal existence against credit reference agency information.  They claim to be 'checking your validity to claim' a single person discount which nobody can in law be receiving, selecting households for this purpose where the code 'single' represents facts stated or thought to be correct on a certain day in the past, and not the basis on which the person is claiming or receiving their bill.  Time after time, the relative cheapness of this procedure is cited, as opposed to the old way of sending out canvass forms before the start of each tax year.  This is supposed to be 'joined up' government, data sharing, transformational and so on.  What it is is in fact corrupt, incompetent and improper.

Moreover, the Audit Commission, whose contribution to probity was much lauded by this same firm, has been at the forefront of this, guided by four London Boroughs which got it wrong.  Subsequently, the Audit Commission Legal Department sent to the NFI a legal briefing pointing out the basic flaw in the logic, but that report has most certainly not been acted upon, and promises issued about providing better information about this data mining activity have been honoured only in the breach.

Sorry Transparency International, your intentions might be good, but the problem I have located goes to the bodies managing the audit: the Audit Commission itself.  Proudly independent, and highly political and strategic, and staffed by persons who get things wrong so often that it is frightening, this unaccountable body has got away with far too much, and is now actively seeking to ensure that some of the worst of its mistakes live on after it.

Hmmm. The present position of the present Minister and his advisors, including the Audit Commission?

James Hacker: You said yourself how important these select committees are. I cannot be seen to mislead them. 
Sir Humphrey Appleby: You will not be SEEN to mislead them.