New Webinars to Discuss Return to Enforcement Findings

Bristow & Sutor will be hosting two webinars this month discussing findings, successes, lessons learned and what comes next after the recent return to enforcement. Our ‘Recommencing enforcement visits...one month on’ sessions are set to be held on Tuesday 29th September 2020 and Thursday 1st October 2020. 

During these interactive conversations, we will hear from Rob Shoebridge, Derby City Council, and Chris Pembleton, Nottingham City Council, who will both join us to share a Local Authorities perspective. We are also delighted to welcome Gita Mistry from Leicester City Council, who will talk about the specific challenges Leicester faced during the first local lockdown.  

Bristow & Sutor representatives Jonathan Branchett (Head of Enforcement), Simon Freedman (Solution Manager – Revenues) and Darren Bell (Solution Manager - Road Traffic) will share their experiences and findings so far. There will be a Q&A session at the end of both webinars and those attending will have the option to send questions in advance or during the event (personally or anonymously).  

We previously hosted two webinars on the subject of returning to enforcement prior to visits recommencing and some of the conversations raised included how to safely return to operations, how to identify vulnerable debtors, what training had been implemented and what reconnection activity would look like. We were joined by over 130 participants, with an audience made up of clients, local authority representatives, leading industry bodies and other key collections and enforcement personnel. We were delighted to see many attendees request more webinars in future and expect our upcoming discussions to be even more popular. 

The majority of those who attended our previous session indicated they planned to return to operations immediately, something that has certainly proved to be the case since the end of August. Since visits resumed, Bristow & Sutor has found they are meeting more people, which was to be expected with more working from home. This is shown by a 15% increase in contact rates.  

We have spoken to our own Enforcement Agents (EAs) at length and they have indicated they are not encountering significant COVID-related issues. 89% of EA’s confirmed that genuine cases of vulnerability, either from their evaluation or from supporting evidence, has made up less than 10% of their work so far. Despite restricted procedures, such as not entering premises, many are collecting on more calls than before, with an increase of payment results by 24%. These statistics and many more insights will be shared and discussed at length on both Tuesday and Thursday sessions.  

Our webinars will both be hosted via RingCentral. For further information and to register to attend, please click here.   

Bristow & Sutor remains committed as ever to its ethos of being Cool, Calm and Collected.