Agenda item
Write Off of Debts - Annual Update Report
Minutes:
The Revenue Services Manager presented the Monitoring of Write Offs Report covering the period April 2015 to March 2016. Details about the debts that had been written off during the period and the procedure that Officers followed to recover those debts had been provided within the report. Members were advised that the levels of write offs fell within the Council’s bad debts provision and compared favourably with performance in the previous financial year.
The Board considered the content of the report in detail and raised a number of specific points about the content:
· The content of the graphs in the report, which had been added at the request of the Board at a previous meeting.
· The amount of correspondence issued in the form of reminders to encourage residents to pay their debts.
· The absence of staff due to sickness during the previous financial year and the impact that this had had on recovery of debts during the period.
· The effect of changes to Council Tax support on customer demand, particularly in respect of clarifying the impact on an individual’s circumstances.
· The ability of residents paying 20 per cent Council Tax to meet this requirement and the numbers in this category who were unable to pay. Officers explained that they were unable to provide these figures partly because the IT software used by the team did not enable Officers to isolate this data and partly due to difficulties identifying the causes of an individual’s debts without looking at every case in detail.
· The level of debt that had been written off for non domestic rates (NDR) and how this compared to levels that had been written off for Council Tax.
· The difficulty for the Council in terms of recovering unpaid NDR in cases where a company had gone into liquidation. Members were informed that the local authority had to abide by strict legislative requirements in these cases.
· The need for a company that had gone into liquidation to provide the Council with proof of debt.
· The role of Enforcement Officers in recovering debts.
· The work of Officers to recover both NDR and Council Tax debts. The Board was advised that Officers applied equal effort to both areas to recover debts.
· The potential for the Council to work with individual residents to develop a payment plan to pay back debts over time in a manageable way.
· The need for Officers to assess debts and payment arrangements on a case-by-case basis.
· The number of cases that had resulted in a summons to court.
· The areas referred to as “other” in the write off tables for Council Tax and NDR. Members were informed that this covered a range of areas, including cases where it would not be appropriate to pursue the debt due to an individual’s health and in cases where the Council had made an error.
· The types of Council error that could arise. Members requested further information on this subject.
Following further discussion Members
RESOLVED that the content of the Write off of Debts Annual Monitoring Update report be noted.
Supporting documents:
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