In Focus Consumer Credit
Scottish legal collections: the Simple Procedure and beyond
For CCRMagazine’s first ever debate in Scotland, run in association with Stirling Park, senior professionals in the legal collections and enforcement sector gathered to discuss collecting debts through the courts. They were: Andrew Foyle, partner, Shoosmiths (AF); Matt Henderson, restructuring partner, Johnston Carmichael (MH); Stacey Mulligan, operations manager, Stirling Park; Mark Fawcitt, credit risk manager, ScottishPower Energy Retail (MF); Ronnie Murison, director of sheriff officer services, Stirling Park (RM); Alison Trussler, debt recovery manager, Nolans Solicitors; Jamie Mathewson, business development director, Stirling Park (JM); Raj Gill, collections manager, Spark Energy; Gerry Kaye, head of debt operations, ScottishPower; Simon Nolan, director, Nolans Solicitors (SN); Lyndsay McMahon, solicitor, Harper Macleod; Steve Crabb, director, consumer vulnerability, Centrica (SCR); Gillian Buchanan, head of dispute resolution, Thorntons; Graeme Brown, chief financial officer, Thorntons; Lynne Darcey Quigley, managing director, Darcey Quigley & Co; Louise Chopra, director, TLT Solicitors; Stephen Cowan, managing partner, Yuill & Kyle (SC); Colin Borland, head of devolved nations, Federation of Small Businesses; Donald McNaught, partner, Johnston Carmichael (DM); Daniel Sheppard, senior strategy manager, Three
no current ability to use an application programming interface (API) that you might see with credit-referencing databases.
MH: The Debt Arrangement Scheme (DAS) is something which I feel has an important part to play for those people who can pay and just need to do so over a period of time. Clearly, it is useful and appropriate in a lot of circumstances, but, in practice, I worry that it is used as a mechanism to head for the hills, allowing a moratorium period in a case that is clearly unable to be supported as a viable DAS, and is, perhaps, being misused in some cases, as a way that debtors can kick the can down the road and make it more difficult for creditors to pursue someone who is evading their responsibilities. A little more careful screening of applications is maybe called for, to ascertain applications that are genuine and appropriate.
SN: On the point of Simple Procedure forms, we have vulnerability policies in place for all consumers, and we listen to consumer calls to ensure best practice is being applied, as I am sure everyone does. The feedback that we get, on the forms from the debtors, is that they do not want to read past page one. However, the forms do not tell you anything on page one. Pages 3, 6, 7, and 8 are where most of the important information is. One positive, that we have found, is that, in defended actions, we are getting quite a lot more engagement than we did before, as the courts are making orders requiring a defender to discuss settlement. Clearly, the more that parties can settle before the claim, then the more that we can keep costs down for the clients, defenders, and courts.
AF: I think that the number of defended claims under Simple Procedures has fallen,
but, with these defended cases, then you know what the defence will be at the outset because they have had to set that out in a lot more detail than they have in the past. So it means that we can deal with them much more quickly, and understand where they are coming from, and we are then ordered to go and discuss with them. But, at least we have a basis for that, which we never really had before, when defenders just a ticked a box saying ‘I want to defend’.
What impact has Simple Procedures had on the number of cases going through court? SN: Certainly, from our point of view, it is currently a case of ‘which court’ because certain sheriffs currently have requirements that we consider go far beyond the Simple Procedures, and these can vary very widely. Certain sheriffs will not allow
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Left-right: Louise Chopra; Lyndsay McMahon; Lynne Darcey Quigley; Gillian Buchanan; Mark Fawcitt April 2018
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