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I took on the role of Third Sector Liaison Officer for Tax Credit Casualties in July 2008. My first action was to send out an email to all 3S organizations on the contact list at that time, introducing myself, outlining how I hoped to be able to work in partnership with other organizations, and requesting representatives from those organizations to make contact with me confirming their role and previous contact with TaxCC. Sadly there was no response to this email, however, I have since received an email from Angie Macdonald of the Single Parent Action Network UK, advising me that the previous contact, Sorrel Parsons had left, and that Angie was now the contact for their organization. I have set up a new thread for 3S organizations to provide information about their services and activities, however, the only posts to date have been from existing forum members, and no organization has taken advantage of this. I have highlighted this forum thread again in a recent email to the 3S group email members which gave information about the AGM and encouraging them to liaise with us. I have done extensive internet research about some of the major organizations relevant to TaxCC, such as LITRG and CAB, in order to be able to understand these organisations aims and objectives and how best to approach these organizations in order to work together as a cohesive group of organizations; all “singing from the same hymn sheet” with a collective voice calling for major reform of the Tax Credit system and a structured and fair approach for dealing with non-fraudulent overpayments. Due to sensitivities around our official status as a “political” organization, some organizations (especially those in receipt of government funding) may find it difficult to align themselves publicly with TaxCC, so I believe a soft approach to individuals within such organizations may be the best approach in the short term. Over the coming 12 months my targets are to develop one-to-one communication with individual members of the following organizations
In addition to these above strategic priorities I will be continuing my own personal awareness raising campaign in my local area. To date, the following have been made aware of TaxCC, the website and forum:
Monitoring of the effectiveness of my efforts should be achievable through feedback from forum members and I try to ask each new member how they found out about the forum. It would be helpful if anyone who replies to a post could do the same. To date, it appears that many new forum members have “stumbled upon” the forum and / or site by accident after turning to the internet in desperation to try to resolve a problem, or through a link from another forum. This feedback can be used in conjunction with statistics from the Webmaster regarding site referrals, to highlight where we have good reciprocal links with other websites and organizations. During September and October 2008 I have been developing and refining an Excel based database of new forum members and the subject of their first post. From this database, the following information can be provided on a monthly basis, in the form of statistics and charts. Some of this information can be added to the website, as a resource / evidence (possibly in the library pages or possibly as an additional main menu link) and can be included in forum member emails from the webmaster.
From these statistics, not only will we be able to monitor the effectiveness of our awareness raising and campaigning work, but also any regular trends in overpayment problems (such as new OPs being done as a “job lot” at a certain time of year etc), the level at which most people seek help, the extent and effectiveness of MPs involvement, and success rates. Other information may also become apparent. Development of this database has taken a substantial amount of time during September and has been my main activity for the past two months. The database and charts are now set up so that minimal time is involved in maintaining it – new member details are inputted on a daily basis (approx 10 mins time) and the statistics and charts auto-update. On a monthly basis, the structure of the database is simply copied into a new worksheet within the same document. Any member of the core group who is familiar with Excel should be able to maintain this database without problem. I am happy to continue developing this database and feel that this could prove to be a very useful resource to provide hard information for press releases, to journalists and for casualties to help highlight common problems and problematic years. Statistics for September 2008 and October 2008 will be available by the start of voting, together with a comparison of statistics for September 2007 and September 2008. Jessica Stam |
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Please note that we are not tax professionals and are working on a voluntary basis, unpaid, in our ‘free time’. Between us, we have a lot of experience and knowledge in this area, gained over the last few years of supporting victims and helping them fight for justice and their rights. But legislation, operating practice and individual cases change all the time. While we aim to be professional and accurate at all times, please understand the circumstances we are working under, and accept our support, guidance and information in the sprit it is offered; goodwill and camaraderie.
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