I was incensed by recent comments made by Fern Silverio of the London Borough of Harrow in a recent article in Parking Review (issue 233).  My first thought was does Mr Silverio recognise the difference between revenue and profit?  The headline referred to ‘a profit share’ whilst his actual intention is a straight percentage of revenue, and anyone with a remote understanding of business would understand the fundamental difference.

The cut backs being made by Central and Local Government are well publicised and doubtless Mr Silverio sees this as an opportunity to support council funding.  Perhaps he forgets that the cuts the Public Sector are now feeling started in the Private Sector following the collapse of the Banking System in 2008.  Private companies are surviving due to strong fiscal management where costs have been controlled, redundancies made and salaries frozen or cut.  None of these painful processes have been avoided by demanding a share of supplier’s revenue.  This is the real world not some commercial fantasy where there are pots of gold to be shared; his suggestion would only create more financial pressure on the providers he uses.

If I were in Mr Silverio’s position I would focus my attention on how I might reduce his Authority’s £10million worth of debt pre bailiff action rather than demanding a revenue split. Rossendales partners many Local Authorities throughout the country that have succeeded year on year in reducing their debt whilst working closely with their bailiff providers to ensure that collections increase.

As someone running my own business I can confidently say that Mr Silverio’s suggestion is misguided, it has no commercial logic, it is immoral, contravenes the National Standards and certainly undermines the excellent work recently carried out by the MOJ.

Can Mr Silverio possess any appreciation of the actual cost of providing a good service in today’s market?  A service that is ultimately provided to the local authority for free.  Has he any idea how much revenue companies operating in the field of enforcement need to generate to operate sophisticated IT systems and mobile technology, to fund certification, accreditation and specialist training and to finance Bonds not to mention managing the inflated insurance and fuel costs we now face.  Oh and of course let’s not forget the ‘added value’ services that companies like mine are expected to provide in support of a contract.  Maybe, in fact, he is aware of all these things, otherwise he would no doubt be endorsing that Harrow operate its own in-house Bailiffs. Mr Silverio’s states that “he wants proper competition between professional bailiffs”, and that he would “rather have two bailiffs doing a proper job than a legion of bailiffs that only put minimum resources into a contract”.  Well I have news for Mr Silverio, he will struggle to get more than two bailiff firms to bid in the first place, and there certainly won’t be the legion he expects. When he finally does get his bailiff firms you can be sure that the ‘minimum resource’ that he is desperately trying to avoid is all they can afford to provide.

Such a ludicrous requirement puts undue pressure on any company and may encourage bad practice at a time when the standards of our profession are continually brought into question. I would be very interested to see how his Authority will monitor its bailiffs, how can he fairly review the fees generated when the more the bailiff charges the better off the Authority?  Top of the agenda at any review meeting must be ‘how much did you make me last quarter?’ In these already difficult trading conditions, whoever wins such a contract will be worried more about their cash flow than anything else.

The only way a bailiff firm can afford to fund an extra income stream for the Local Authority is by taking it from those members of its community that are already in extreme financial difficulty.  We are all aware of the old adage ‘those that pay, pay for those that don’t’, well in Harrow they pay for those that don’t and also provide additional funding for their Council!  How does encouraging their Bailiff provider to levy additional fees sit with the Council’s core priority of ‘supporting and protecting people who are most in need’?  I would be interested to hear the views of Harrow’s Chief Executive and its elected members, does he and they also support increasing fees to the most needy in society to subsidise the Council?

I appreciate that local authorities must seek ways to cut costs and increase revenues but doing so at the expense of the most vulnerable in their communities is untenable and to dress it up as a piece of good business is frankly disgraceful.

Rossendales is fortunate to work in partnership with clients that understand the values and benefits a good Bailiff brings to the Enforcement process and does not use them to build up their coffers at the expense of their own Tax Payers. I just hope that our clients and other Authorities treat Mr Silverio’s comments with the contempt they deserve and continue to work in a fair and equitable way with their bailiff providers.

Perhaps a FOI request to establish fees charged to Harrow’s debtors in relation to revenue collected would make for interesting reading……..