In Focus Collections
A brave new world for higher education
The Pre-Action Protocol promises to bring new challenges from the perspective of this unique sector
Richard Bond Income leam leader, London Metropolitan University
r.bond@
londonmet.ac.uk
By the time this article is published, all of us working in the credit-control environment will be living in the brave-new world of the Pre-Action Protocol (PAP) legislation. Obviously, PAP will affect organisations’
debt-chasing in different ways, dependent on the nature of their business, and the pros and cons of PAP have already been discussed at some length in this esteemed publication. It appears to me that the well-intentioned
ethos of PAP legislation is to encourage dialogue and interaction between disputing parties, in order to avoid the necessity to take court action. For any organisation attempting to collect
sums owed to it, court action is an often time-consuming and costly affair, and, therefore, a last resort in the first place. So one cannot dispute the noble intentions of the PAP process. The problem, to me, is that it assumes
from the offset that both parties involved in a debt issue, or dispute, are mutually engaged in wishing to resolve the matter; a commendable ethos but, alas, often untrue. Without doubt, the PAP will pose a
challenge for us, in higher education, who are tasked with collecting outstanding debts from individuals. It must be stated from the onset that a vast majority of students studying in the UK leave education after a highly rewarding experience, with a degree or other qualification that will have both enriched their lives and have greatly enhanced their career prospects. The problem is that many students, for
one reason or another, are not funded by an external body and self-pay their tuition fees; regrettably, a significant number of
36 Aspects of the PAP, such as a deadline
The legislation is in place and the next challenge for higher-education credit managers is to incorporate it into their credit-control process and make a positive out of it all
such individuals often walk away from their obligation to pay debts they have incurred to their learner provider. Therein lies the inherent weakness of the
new PAP process; individuals already failing to engage with their debt position to organisations will now, potentially, have even greater avenues to avoid addressing the issue than before.
www.CCRMagazine.co.uk
giving the claimant 30 days to produce any documents requested by the debtor, may be simply utilised as a delaying tactic to request documents that they are likely to already have in their possession. The additional administrative work the
PAP will burden organisations with, will also undoubtedly add to costs in resourcing their collection work going forward. Still, the legislation is in place and the
next challenge for higher-education credit managers is to incorporate it into their credit-control process and make a positive out of it all. If I have briefly set out the perceived
problems of the PAP, then it remains for a future article in this esteemed publication to propose the solutions to them. As my old manager at British Telecom used to say: “OK Bond, you have outlined the problem – give me the solution!” CCR
January 2018
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