Computers Rule OK?

It appears that Calderdale Council have a computer system which automatically sends out threats of visits by bailiffs to anyone who defaults in their payments – no matter how small! You may well say - well they were in debt, but owing 69 pence, does it really merit sending out threatening letters and the possibility of a visit from a bailiff?

It seems that a seventy eight years old widow was going to be visited by bailiffs because she had inadvertently omitted 69 pence from a cheque she was using to pay for her alarm services.

Calderdale’s computers send out demands and threats of visits by the bailiffs. Whilst they admitted that this kind of behaviour was “inhuman”, they do not appear to have the ability to use a bit of common sense and over ride a computer system which behaves in such a manner. If they had had the ability to think for themselves this would never have happened in the first place.

I detect in this the usual attitude of “follow the rule book at all costs.” Surely to goodness some computer operator could have used their common sense and stopped the computer behaving in such an inhuman manner. Some one (ie a human being – not a computer!) had to input the information into the computer in the first place. Why couldn’t they have used their common sense and stopped the computer generating the threats?

Come on Calderdale. Get your act together. Get your computer system sorted out, or else let your computer operators have the permission to use a bit of common sense in cases like this. Better still, why not remove this program from the computer altogether?