CIVEA COVID-19 response shortlisted for Association Excellence Award all members and implemented smoothly. We are delighted to reveal that the CIVEA Post-lockdown Support CIVEA made a voluntary commitment to contactless visits and Plan has been shortlisted for an Association Excellence Award in to not enter residential premises. All engagement throughout the the Best Covid-19 Crisis Response category. The winners of this COVID-19 crisis so far has been contactless and for safety, agents prestigious award will be announced at a ceremony that is set to have not been entering people’s homes but engaged on the doorstep. take place in the events space at The Kia Oval, London on Tuesday Body-worn cameras are mandatory and EAs must comply with social 29th June 2021. distancing rules and use PPE. Anyone identified as being vulnerable is The Association Excellence Awards salute, celebrate and encourage referred to the council and provided with additional support and help the vital work that associations, trade organisations, unions and industry bodies do for and on behalf of their members to ensure their with their debts. Since enforcement successfully resumed, we published a detailed voices are heard and their causes are championed. These awards are report based on a survey of 21 enforcement firms and their field open to constituted industry associations, professional organisations, agents, the responses to which allowed us to identify where trade bodies and unions within the UK and Europe. All categories are additional training or guidance was needed. Our Post-lockdown awarded based on the decision of an independent panel of judges. Support Plan has now evolved into the COVID-19 Support Plan to The Post-lockdown Support Plan was developed to ensure the reflect ongoing changes to government advice and safety regulations. safety of members of the public, clients, customers and agents. As the national roadmap for recovery continues to be implemented The result was a groundbreaking initiative that set a template in 2021, we maintain a flexible approach and offer guidance and for future public debt recovery. Achieving shortlisting for this support to members, customers and the public by communicating award is a testament to the ongoing success and achievement of clearly where restrictions may impact enforcement practice. CIVEA members, who contributed to the creation and continued In light of this, we have also launched an updated training implementation of this robust response to the unforeseen and portal this year, containing refresher modules that are designed unimaginable coronavirus pandemic. By acting quickly and decisively to consolidate knowledge on safe enforcement. Unlike the CIVEA members provided leadership to a diverse clientele of local mandatory training in the original Post-lockdown Support Plan, authorities at a crucial time and they deserve to receive recognition this was an optional resource to keep EAs up to date. So far, 74% for their ongoing commitment and efforts. of all Certified EAs across England and Wales that are listed on the The first phase of the Post-lockdown Support Plan saw members Ministry of Justice certificated bailiff register have completed this roll out a reconnection and vulnerability identification period refresher training. to ensure that all those in debt were aware of the restart of Enforcement visits continue to be supported by Government enforcement and the precautions we were taking. This involved a and the ongoing hard work of CIVEA members is supporting template letter plus individual follow up communication by texts, the responsible application of the very latest government emails and calls. The letter aimed to engage with customers to guidance. Regardless of the outcome of the award ceremony in understand how they were affected by the COVID-19 crisis and to June, we are incredibly proud to have been commended for the respond as appropriate. Collectively over two million letters were sensible, thoughtful and successful actions of our members and sent out by CIVEA members to people in debt. Our commitments that are already outlined in our Code of Practice the collaborative. made it possible to quickly implement a comprehensive and bespoke training programme to over 1700 Enforcement Agents (EAs) over a 10-week period. Training covered donning and doffing PPE correctly, social distancing and contact with the public. We also uploaded two animations to the CIVEA website to explain what this Negotiation with customers using video services. training entailed and an explanation of the standard enforcement process. 2021 will see the introduction of WebRTC technology services for video calls with These videos, ‘COVID-19 Safe customers. With simple to use technology and scheduling services to Working Practices’ and ‘CIVEA Guide support enforcement & customers reach better outcomes. To Enforcement’ remain available to view online. Communication with For more information contact Daniel Pearce customers remained essential during and join our forthcoming seminars. the health crisis especially after a daniel.pearce@telsolutions.co.uk five-month hiatus on enforcement www.telsolutions.co.uk visits, as during that suspension, councils incurred £4.8 billion of Using intuitive customer communications to extra costs and income losses, enhance income and recoveries. significantly impacting support and funding for essential local services. Adopting behaviour automation to create The Government released updated efficiencies & positive outcomes. guidelines on enforcement activity Telsolutions – Always go a little further three days before visits were set to resume in August 2020 and CIVEA ensured this was communicated to
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ENFORCEMENT NEWS • Summer 2021 • CIVEA Civil Enforcement Association