WNC blunder sees more than 15,000 residents wrongly charged TWICE for council tax this month

More than 15,000 residents in West Northamptonshire have been wrongly charged TWICE for their council tax this month.

West Northamptonshire Council (WNC) says it is taking ‘urgent action’ after being alerted to an automated error in the system hosted by its BACS supplier, meaning that monthly council tax payments are due to be taken twice from 15,558 bank accounts today (Monday, April 29).

The council says immediate steps were taken on Friday (April 26) to refund all those affected, who will receive a credit into their accounts today (Monday), the same day as the duplicated payment is due to be taken.

Martin Henry, executive director for finance at WNC apologised to all those affected.

He said: “We are sincerely sorry for the inconvenience and distress this error may have caused residents.

“Whilst our supplier’s software system automatically duplicated payment files which was beyond our control, we’ve acted quickly to arrange for refunds to be made into those affected bank accounts.

WNC says residents affected by this error should see three entries going through their account. Two entries taking the council tax payment and one entry providing a refund. The net of these three transactions means the correct payment will have been made to the council.

“We would ask those residents to bear with us whilst we resolve this issue and thank them for their patience and understanding,” said Mr Henry.

The error has affected 15,558 accounts, equating to around eight per cent of the 184,683 total number of council tax accounts across West Northamptonshire, according to the council.