More than £45k 'irrecoverable' debt written off

A council tax debt and two business rate arrears were brought to Stafford Borough Council's cabinet

Debts worth more than £45,000 that have been deemed "irrecoverable", are to be written off at a council.

A council tax debt of more than £11,441 and two business rate arrears totalling over £34,673 were brought to Stafford Borough Council's cabinet for write-off.

Cabinet member for resources Ralph Cooke said regrettably "not all monies owed" to the authority could be collected, despite its "best endeavours", and the cost of collection had been considered.

Efforts would be increased to collect older council tax debts, a report said.

Cabinet members were also given an update on the authority's progress in collecting business rates, as well as recovering housing benefit overpayments, between April and June this year.

The council "retains around 10% of the council tax collected", the report to the cabinet said.

It added such tax due for the current year amounted to £111.8m and the authority had collected 28.6% of this by the end of quarter one in June.

"The collection rate for the same period last year was 28.7%. The team will be increasing our efforts to collect older council tax debts due to the Council and this may impact some residents' ability to pay current charges."

Business rates due for the current year amount to £59.6m, of which 28.9% was collected by the end of June - last year's figure was 31.2%.

The report said repeating "last year's performance in the coming year will be challenging" as many retail, hospitality and leisure establishments were facing increased bills, as government relief to these premises had reduced.

A total of £92,200 of overpaid housing benefit has been collected in the first quarter of this financial year.

This news was gathered by the Local Democracy Reporting Service which covers councils and other public service organisations.