Council may switch provider as 17,000 taxed twice

Forest of Dean councillors said communication with residents must be improved

A district council may cut ties with its banking payment services provider after more than 17,000 residents and businesses were double charged council tax and business rates.

A scrutiny group set up to investigate the incident at the Forest of Dean in August concluded no council staff or workers at Publica were responsible, and that the failure originated within the systems of the council's bank and an unnamed third-party contractor.

The authority has received formal apologies from both, but a public meeting was told it "wouldn't like to name" the provider.

Council communication fell short, the committee accepted, with many residents finding out what had happened from social media.

Cllr John Francis speaking at the meeting that reviewed the payment error

Chairman John Francis presented the group's findings on 27 November.

He said the council had reviewed how the error occurred and what action was taken afterwards.

The report found that "dated payment processes which should have been permanently archived" during a system upgrade were mistakenly reactivated, triggering duplicate direct debit requests.

Banking safety measures did not identify the issue at the time, reported the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

Mr Francis said the incident caused "understandable concern" and the group was satisfied the technical error "originated from within the banking and payments systems".

Incident 'very rare'

Concerns over communication were raised by independent councillor Tim Gwilliam, who said the public "didn't pick the third party" or choose the bank and that a measure of accountability was needed.

Mr Francis said it came through "loud and clear" that the council's communication plan had to be improved.

Chief financial officer Andrew Knott told the meeting that all customers should have been refunded by now, and the committee recommended the council looks at alternate banking providers.

Finance cabinet member Andy Moore thanked council staff for their work to rectify the situation, adding that errors of this kind are "extremely rare".