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Proposal for transfer of Write off authority for Formers Subpostmaster Accounts cases
up to week 52 year 2002/03 from Commercial and Community Finance Managers to
Transaction Processing.
The current process means that cases over £500 are documented and sent to the
Commercial and Community Finance managers for write off authority. This is a fairly
simple process but recently we have received a number of queries regarding the cases
insisting that we continue investigations even though we have been advised by Legal
services that it would not be cost effective to do so.
Cases are sent by E Mail to Helen Silverthorn or Alan Gazzard for write off authority
and although the turnaround is fairly quick for most cases we are regularly involved
and E Mails back and forth when Heads of Area are questioning the process. A recent
case is over 3 years old and the debt stands at £886.00 but we are being asked to
pursue by the Community Finance Manager.
Alison Bolsover and I attended a meeting with Tony Marsh and Phil Gerrish to discuss
accountabilities. At this meeting it was agreed that we should hold case reviews with
Security and Audit for cases rejected by Legal Services as not cost effective to pursue.
We also require a process for discussion of cases with the finance managers to ensure
that they understand why we are suggesting write off and the action taken so far.
There also needs to be a process for mediation when write off is disputed by the
finance managers. We currently send a short history of the case by E Mail and send
more information if requested. If agreed we receive write off authority by mail and this
is backed up by a signed document from the Finance manager.
The proposal is that we should authorise the cases up to and including week 52 2002
within TP to save time and cost on the administration of the cases and legal costs for
lost causes. We would then liaise with the Finance managers on all cases from week 01
2003 onwards. A suggested improvement to the current process would be to hold
review meetings either monthly or quarterly with the Finance managers in order to
discuss unusual cases and make joint decisions on write offs
We would also have the following criteria set to instruct the team on when to pass
cases to Legal Services :
Cases over £200 - Letter before action £25
Cases over £500 - Letter before action and Tracing agent if required £150
Cases over £500
e Ifno response from tracing agent we need to consider write off
e IfFormer Sub Postmaster found and financial status established we will ask Legal
services for advice on how to proceed.
¢ Legal services will proceed with cases on our instructions and if they reach a point
where it is no longer cost effective to pursue recovery they will advise us in writing.
¢ The Agents Debt 4 Team leader will make a decision on whether to pass cases
above £500 on to the finance managers for authority or make further investigations.
Suggested Authority limits for write off up to week 52 2002 :-
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Team leader - up to £lk
CMI- up to £15k
Operations Manager up to £25k
Head of TP up to £50k
Peter Corbett Over £50k
All new cases from 1* April 2003 will be written to a specific profit and Loss code
where the area manager is accountable for this. We would like to start this process at
the earliest possible opportunity to prevent any more delays in processing cases.
Carol King
Debt Recovery I