What a brilliant event the icm11 Awards Dinner was http://www.icm.org.uk/ - a magnificent venue, superb food and remarkable achievements by the Awards' nominees and winners, and the successful Graduates and Prizewinners. It was a real demonstration of the credit community at its best - a community at the heart of which the ICM proudly sits. Gyles Brandreth, the superb host for the evening, privately observed just how friendly the event was and how obviously proud credit professionals are of the community to which they belong.
Gyles had a way of engaging with all of the audience, from our retiring President to the newly qualified student. He also highlighted current themes, one of which is the considerable debate that is ongoing around the Lord Chancellor's statement that he intends to make squatting a criminal offence in England and Wales.
Some parts of the enforcement community, and particularly Claire Sandbrook of Shergroup, are arguing that this is the wrong approach. She believes that the existing powers should be enforced more rigorously, that the court application process needs to be simplified, and that the time taken to grant an order to evict should be accelerated. The public, she argues, would be better served by having a process that enables necessary orders to be obtained and passed to High Court Enforcement Officers within days rather than the weeks it takes currently.
She could well be right; sometimes changing something already in place is preferable to using a sledgehammer to crack a nut, particularly when the sledgehammer might increase the prison population and put even more pressure on the criminal justice system. It will be interesting to see if others rally to the mast.
No comments:
Post a Comment