Special Arrangements

Special Arrangements (SPARs) enable councils to maximise their recovery rates by enabling those that have breached the original instalment plans to set up payment arrangements subsequently.

The economic consequences of the lockdown put in place to prevent transmission of COVID-19 are expected to be vast for citizens and businesses alike. Consequently, the likelihood of there being an increase in non-payment by those that would normally pay is significant. Therefore, having an intelligent special arrangement service is going to be of greater value in the coming years.

Enabling citizens to apply for a special payment arrangement online, which conforms to the council’s payment arrangement policies is crucial given the focus on ensuring:

• The removal of physical documents

• the digitization / standardisation of processes, and

• the maximization of the resources the council has available

IEG4’s SPARs solution is intelligent and uses data already known about a citizen to drive a personalised process that results in the complete automation of the process.

General Functionality

The form is able to:

• Authenticate a citizen

• Retrieve their address/account information

• Provide the citizen with details of the amounts (debts) eligible for a special payment arrangement

• Capture details of their employment/benefits etc.

• Enable an arrangement to be made with Card (Cash) or Direct Debit options

• Enable a council’s policies on the following to be handled:

  • The minimum/maximum length of time for arrangements

  • The frequencies the council supports

  • The different recovery stage/enforcement stages

    • The ability to provide custom messaging for every recovery stage where the council does not want a SPAR to be created. A reason/call to action to progress would be captured.

• Provide the citizen with three ‘smart suggestion’ options on instalments:

  • Quickest

  • Cheapest

  • Flexible

    • Where the user can select the number of instalments (within the council’s policies min/max based upon the period of time they would cover)

• Calculate the instalment schedule based upon the option they selected and provide them with a view of the instalment plan for them to agree to prior to submission

• Capture / validate their bank details for the purposes of an arrangement being made via Direct Debit