Caerphilly County Borough Council’s Plaid Cymru group has tabled a motion calling on access to all payday loan sites to be blocked from council-owned computers.
The move comes four months after the Party of Wales first urged the ruling Labour administration to take action like other organisations, including local authorities.
Cllr Colin Mann, leader of the Plaid Cymru group, said: “According to the Citizens Advice Bureau, as a result of payday loans the number of people across Wales struggling with debt has increased by 599%.
“Many local authorities have already taken action by blocking access to payday loan websites from all public and non-public computers, including those in libraries and community facilities. Plaid councillors made the appeal for action in July but nothing happened, so now it is time for the council to move and not close their eyes to the problem.”
Pointless! The use of a proxy will bypass the block. You could block proxies but then you could use VPN's. Additionally, I dislike the idea of censorship whether it's censoring the press or what websites can be accessed. I think it should be a personal choice.
"Personal choice" or gullible? Payday loans, by their very nature, are heinous, should be avoided, banned and outlawed. There are other safer methods of avoiding crippling interest rates. Our Council should block access to Payday loan sites and encourage those experiencing hardship to contact the Citizens Debt Advice. The proposal to our Council is relevant and should have urgent consideration.
How do you block them Clive? Use a proxy and all is unblocked. It's not worth the effort to 'block' something only to find out that it's not actually blocked. A waste of money too.
Let's campaign to outlaw the lenders before embarking on censorship. I think think censorship is more heinous than the pay day lenders.
Dean, how would you put a VPN on council computers?
The Sentiment behind `Clive`s` comments are correct, however, he assumes that everyone who uses these sites are ` In Debt`, that is generally not the case, and how seeking Debt Management `advice` helps a family in a `moment` of severe financial hardship, i.e. to have an immediate access to pound notes, to buy, gas, or electricity, food, or just transport costs to get children to school or parents to work I don`t understand.
There are many thousands of households in Caerphilly, ( the most deprived and poorest, ( including child poverty)area of the UK) who buy their heating and light, and the ability to cook a hot a meal ON A DAILY BASIS, they do not have access to the heat light and power `Credit line` which people like Clive has, they do not have the level of income to fill the kitchen cupboards up once a week at Asda or Morrisons, so, they have to decide almost on a daily basis what to buy, and this ability to purchase food is governed by the amount of ` pound notes in their pockets at the time` so, these odious and destructive pay day loan Companies have sprung up from a real need.
The problem is NOT a local authority restricting access to such facilities, it is what the local Authority are ding, IN REAL TERMS to lift local families out of poverty, to ensure the children, of the people the local authority serves, do not fall further into poverty,
and, to ensure that EVERY decision the local council takes when it spend our money includes a statement which has considered how that proposition to spend our money effects or not, the poverty indicators in our communities, reducing the need for local families to use these money lending firms who have largely taken over form those other odious `street` money lenders that our MP Wayne David help rid the communities over that past few years.
The Council are very very good at spending money, that is what it does, but are they any good at all of spending that money properly, it appears not if one measures the effectiveness of recent decisions to throw money at senior officers of Caerphilly Council with gay abandonment, to throw away money on senior officers car allowances, and, in handing money to a local bunch of people playing PI confidential in following local citizens going about their lawful business, and doing so without any real checks and balances.
Local Credit Unions are the answer, more should be done to encourage people to use them, for instance, by offering small loans repayable in full over a very short term, weeks not months, at a very respectable interest rate, perhaps those local Caerphilly borough citizens desperately seeking such short term loans from these `shark` Companies would quickly find out that there is a local solution other than getting ensnared on a spiral of increased debt. The solution is local, the will however to create such a facility is absent.
I work for the council. If we weren't on such poor salarees maybe wouldn't have to use the payday loans!! Low pay when councillors on £16, 000 and Chief Exec and his side kick Barnett STILL ON FULL PAY WHILST BEING INVESTIGATED FOR FRAUD. Bet they dont need to use payday loans and enjoy their fat cat xmas!!!
Come on Zoe, being a councillor is not meant to be your only job. It's a side job. Most local councillors of working age (>65) have two jobs. If they are over 65, they have a pension.
Cheryl, I think that you misunderstood Zoe. She is not a Councillor with two jobs. She works for the Council. She does however have over twice the income of the basic pension. Zoe, keep focused on improvement, justice and success.
I am involved in the business and I can tell you that the ban is a waste of time. The council (and all of the other local authorities) do not have the manpower to maintain an up to date list of these sites. Their lists will become out of date very quickly as the companies can turn these new sites around in 24 hours. I'd prefer my local council to concentrate on more pressing issues.