Authority owes me but is making demands

Since it is apparent that the staff of RBWM’s council tax payments section either cannot read, or cannot be bothered to read and heed letters sent to them by residents, may I ask you to pass on to them my response below to their bullying letter of June 1, 2022?

Thank you for your letter of June 1 (received June 7, 2022), ignoring my April 8, 2022 letter to you concerning, ‘£150 rebate on band A-D properties.’

That letter pointed out to you that, in a communication to me received on March 14, 2022, you:

“...b) told me that ‘households in council tax bands A-D will receive the £150 council tax rebate’;

c) told me, twice, that, ‘your council will confirm how the rebate will be paid in your area’.

“You will appreciate that a monthly council tax bill of £150 or so is all the more problematic for an unemployed person such as me, given the huge rise in electricity bills which will take effect from the start of April.

“Please provide me with the twicementioned confirmation of how I will be paid my £150 rebate.”

Ever keen to display the highest standards of customer service, you paid no attention at all to this request (which some might say should not have been needed in the first place).

Instead, your idea of value for money for taxpayers was to send me (and I daresay quite a few other council tax payers) a letter:

(i) pointing out that I had not paid the

May council tax instalment (which I knew, thank you);

(ii) threatening to spend further taxpayers’ money issuing a magistrates’ court summons - in which case you inform

me that a balance of £1,377.00 would be due IN ONE PAYMENT.

While I am not the sort to be intimidated by chest-beating bullies, I am concerned that such a letter is also likely to have gone to various other householders in a similar position, some of whom might allow your bully-boy tactics to panic them into making a payment they cannot afford – to someone who owes them £150; perhaps even taking out a loan to meet the cost.

What makes the Royal Borough so high and mighty that they can spend taxpayers’ money sending out such letters, without any hint of when or how they might pay over to their customers the money which Her Majesty’s Government said months ago they want those customers to have?

If the Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead really think that spending taxpayers’ money on a summons for me to attend a magistrates’ court, for you to attempt to persuade a lay magistrate that justice demands that the magistrate make an order for me to pay money to you, notwithstanding the £150 of Government money owed by you to me, then good luck, and I look forward to seeing you in court!

JAY FLYNN Moneyrow Green

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