Futility

As on every Thursday morning I undertook a shift at the Rainbow Centre, Marion helps out on the reception where she is a calming confident presence while I work behind the scenes with the Debt Counselling Group. I came across a case today that in a microcosm showed the futility of organisations. One of the clients owed well under £100 in Council Tax arrears to Scarborough Council. They decided in their wisdom to pursue this debt, which was relatively recent. The court summons to Scarborough Magistrates Court stated that an additional £100 would be added in costs. So now somebody who could not pay a small sum had his debts more than doubled.

Now don’t get me wrong I am absolutely behind the Council in trying to maximise the Council Tax take, I just think that there needs to be a sense of proportion. Is more than doubling the debt of somebody who cannot pay the original sum a good idea. It seems to me that there must be more humane and effective approach. Make no mistake the chasing of debts like this has only two logical outcomes, a restructuring of the original debt or prison. In the latter case the cost to society of getting to that stage is enormous both in financial and human terms.

We seem to have lost our sense of proportion and fairness as a society. We have no feeling for the humanity of a case but instead are heartlessly try to criminalise a whole raft of people. I contrast this was a piece that I saw in the media recently, it came to light that Ian Duncan Smith none other than the minister for Work and Pensions had failed to submit timely expense claims on his House of Commons credit card. There was a considerable amount of money, well into five figures that was unaccounted for. The penalty for this, his credit card was temporarily stopped. Now if one of his claimants were in a similar position all sorts of sanctions would have been imposed.

I feel very strongly that as a society we are not being fair and that we are losing sight of our humanity. We are also taking actions that seem to be totally ineffective in trying to fulfil their objectives.