Wrexham Council accused of “disrespect to tax payers” after series of Welsh language errors in Council Tax bills

Wrexham Council has been accused of disrespecting tax payers and the Welsh language following a series of complaints over errors in Council Tax bills.

Over the summer the local authority was issued with a special report from the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales due to failures to remedy errors within its Welsh Council Tax documentation.

Such complaints stem back from 2014 when a resident – referred to as ‘Mr D’ in the Ombudsman’s report – contacted the council about Welsh language mistakes in his Council Tax bill. Similar complaints were also made in 2015 and 2016.

In 2017, after receiving a bill with further errors, Mr D made a formal complaint to the council and the Ombudsman.

In October of that year Wrexham Council formally agreed to apologise in writing to Mr D for the deficiencies in the Welsh language, to pay him redress of £50 for his trouble, and to give an assurance that those errors would be rectified in time for the 2018/2019 billing period (if not before).

But a further complaint was made by Mr D “when a number of Welsh language errors (and inconsistency between Welsh and English within the document)” appeared in his 2018/19 Council Tax bill in March this year.

In a second formal complaint to the Ombudsman, he accused the council of “disrespect to tax payers, the Welsh language, the law and the Ombudsman” due to its failure to comply with the recommendations.

Wrexham Council has since sent a written apology to Mr D for the continued delay in correcting the linguistic errors in the Council Tax document and offer £100 in compensation for the injustice caused to him and for his efforts in having to raise the matter again.

The council was also ordered to publish a copy of the Ombudsman’s recommendations and review on its website.

Next Tuesday councillors will be provided with an update on the action taken by the authority’s finance department to rectify the issues and address the Ombudsman’s recommendations.

A report due before the executive board on Tuesday, states: “Work has commenced to ensure that the items referred to in paragraph 2.8 (report viewable here) are completed.

“Items (a) to (c) have been completed, along with a number of documents and information sent to our translation partners to review and provide translations where required.

“Once these documents have been returned work will be undertaken to input these onto the appropriate systems and work with suppliers where appropriate to ensure that the revised Council Tax Demand notice is ready for annual billing in 2019/20.”

It is also noted that: “Failure to incorporate the agreed changes would lead to the ombudsman and Welsh Language Commissioner indicating that the Council is not compliant with the Welsh Language Standards which could lead to a substantial fine being issued and also this could cause reputation damage to the council.”

You can read the Ombudsman’s report in full on the council website here.