West Lothian Council
Like most regional authorities, West Lothian Council have a huge portfolio of legacy debt on their Tax Revenues. As the debt increased year on year, so did the cost of collection, of which the largest part was finding lost debtors who were no longer at the address on the council records. A more efficient way of dealing with this burgeoning problem had to be found, and Paul Evans, Head of Revenues at West Lothian, decided to pilot Data Discoveries' tracing products to see if they could find the absconded debtors.
Data Discoveries' products use their unique Masterfiles. The Masterfiles are a database of adults and businesses in the UK multi-sourced to increase validiity. They also include telephone data. This amount of data is indexed and compressed into 800 megabites and distributed quarterly, typically on CD ROM.
"Data Discoveries' software enables our customers to identify, track and trace their customers from within their database systems," says Gordon Galloway, Managing Director of Data Discoveries, "so they maintain contact with customers and debtors without interruptions".
The system then also enables new customer information to be captured quickly and accurately. Having identified that a customer has moved, the system can then be used to find where they have gone, using a range of background information such as name, gender, date of last contact, the area they lived in and the name of anyone they are living with. Within seconds a list of possible current addresses is displayed. The user can then browse through the results, with address, date of entry on the electoral roll, co-habitees names and other details all displayed simultaneously. Historical information containing Electoral Roll data from 1996 to present is available to assist in tracing individuals.
"It is the flexibility of searching which enables us to pinpoint the debtors new address with such speed and accuracy" says Evans. "For the first time we could browse the entire UK in seconds using all of the information we had to hand. Data Discoveries' software has proved an indispensable tool"
With the first 100 attempted traces, West Lothian found 58 debtors with whom they had lost touch. As a result, bills totalling £39,000 were despatched immediately, with minimal associated charges. "This is an added benefit for us," said Grant Henderson (Systems Manager). "We are now able to start collecting the debt before we incur external charges" So not only have West Lothian increased their revenues from debt collection, they have reduced the costs of doing so.
