Case Histories › Cardiff County Council

Added protection and back-up for debt recovery team

Cardiff County Council's debt recovery department is responsible for collecting council tax and business rates arrears. It employs 26 staff, six of whom are outside bailiffs working on contract.

Problem

Recovery Manager Keith Thomas was concerned to tackle the health and safety concerns of his lone workers, particularly as there had been several incidences where bailiffs had been attacked.
The department was running its own checking-in system whereby staff phoned in or were contacted and calls were logged on worksheets but in Mr Thomas's words: "It was pretty poor and open to human error."

Solution

To give the council's field workers a greater degree of protection and back up, Autopage customised its Lone Star lone worker protection system to suit the department's needs, linking it into the council's PC-based database. Now bailiffs log onto the system via their mobiles and text to say where they are going and their estimated time of arrival. When they finish a call, they text again to say they are on their way to the next appointment.

"If they go slightly over their appointment time, the system sends them a reminder to say they haven't booked off," Mr Thomas explains. "If they don't answer, an alarm is activated in the office."

The office interface gives a visual warning - green for normal, orange for a reminder and red to indicate alarm - as well as an audible alert tone. The bailiffs can also hit a speed dial panic button on their mobiles if a situation gets out of hand.

"The system is very easy to install and to run and it certainly does what we want it to do. The staff like it and you don't have to be too technically -minded to operate it," Mr Thomas says. "The system is attractively priced and Autopage provides an excellent back-up service."