Why we’re asking the Ministry of Justice for independent regulation of bailiffs

By alison.blackwood, Senior Policy and Campaigns Advocate

StepChange Debt Charity is one of the 11 organisations in the Taking Control campaign for bailiff reform, and I’ve spent the past month or so deeply immersed in the reams of findings and evidence that we and other partners have amassed on bailiffs behaving badly.

Today, we’ve submitted that joint evidence document — all 156 pages of it — to the Ministry of Justice in response to its call for evidence as part of its review of 2014 reforms of the bailiff industry.

Taken in the round, the main message is absolutely clear. Implementing a formal system of regulation for bailiff firms is the only way that all the different problematic aspects of the sector stand a chance of being addressed effectively.

Filling the regulatory gaps that beset the bailiff sector

Experience from the financial service sector shows regulation works in terms of improving conduct, and providing a free and fair redress mechanism when things do go wrong.

It’s no coincidence that bailiffs top the list of creditors that StepChange clients believe have treated them unfairly — far higher than any other type of organisation, including local authorities, payday lenders, and (regulated) debt collection agents.

It makes no sense to leave arguably the most intrusive part of the whole chain outside a formal regulatory framework, especially given all our evidence that bailiffs continue to act aggressively and break regulations and standards.

It’s not just a few “rogue bailiffs”

In the absence of regulatory data or existing public monitoring by the Ministry of Justice, advice agencies have compiled evidence providing a compelling reason to regulate the bailiff industry.

Our public polling suggests that the advice agency experience is a far closer match with public perception — 1 in 3 of adults who’ve experienced a bailiff in the past two years have experienced action that breaks a rule, and an overwhelming 83% of the public think that the sector should be formally regulated.

Financial incentives to visit homes

Bailiffs earn more if they visit rather than agree a repayment strategy by phone. Interestingly, our analysis suggests bailiff sector firms’ profits have typically increased markedly — and beyond expectations — since the 2014 reforms.

Individual bailiffs still often work as contractors, with payment based on sums collected.

Meanwhile the firms who employ or contract them aren’t sufficiently accountable for the actions of their agents, as they’re not themselves subject to any form of statutory, formal regulation.

This means there are no sanctions or penalties, no regulatory supervision, no regulatory reporting and no teeth against bad behaviour as far as firms are concerned. This is an anomaly and flies in the face of the accountability that firms across the financial sector otherwise face.

Problems with complaining about bailiffs

While there may have been just 56 court complaints against individual bailiffs since 2014, public polling suggests that as many as 850,000 people have experienced some form of rule-breaking by a bailiff in the last two years. Yet three quarters of these didn’t even attempt to complain.

This shows a lack of trust in the complaints process, and a lack of understanding and visibility on how to access it. Only independent regulation can ensure a more effective and transparent complaints system.

There is overwhelming evidence of harm to the most vulnerable people

Although there are rules that are meant to stop bailiffs in their tracks if they encounter people with vulnerabilities and refer them back to creditors, too often this doesn’t happen.

Given that around nine out of 10 StepChange clients contacted by a bailiff in the past two years had an additional vulnerability, over and above the problem debt, there’s simply too much risk of harm to vulnerable people from an unregulated bailiff sector.

The contrast with the regulated sector — where Treating Customers Fairly is a fully embedded regulatory expectation that firms are required to evidence with robust policies — is too extreme to go left unchecked.

To us, it seems obvious that regulating bailiff firms properly, on a formal basis, is the only logical response to the current lack of trust, accountability, data transparency and good practice that currently characterise the sector.

You can read our joint response with the Taking Control campaign for bailiff reform on our website or at bailiffreform.org, as well as our joint press release on the response.