Kirklees Council wrote off almost £6 million of bad debt during the financial year 2018-19 according to new figures released by the council. Whilst the figure appears high finance chiefs at the council have advised it reflects only a tiny percentage of the authority’s revenue.
The largest write-offs from April 2018 to March 2019 were in Council Tax (£1,882,304), Adult Social Care (£1,409,686), Business Rates (£910,652) and Finance Services (£811,250), which relates mainly to housing benefit overpayment recovery. The cumulative figure of £5.9million was slightly higher than the 2017-18 amount of £5.5million.
As a percentage of debt raised it was 1.2%. In 2016-17 the percentage was higher, at 1.4%. As the fifth largest council in the country, Kirklees has 187,894 properties liable for Council Tax (£203m in 2018-19) and 16,003 properties for Business Rates (£107m in 2018-19).
In 2018-19 Kirklees achieved a collection rate of 98.55% in Council Tax and 98.5% in Business Rates. Council Tax arrears increased to £17m the percentage compared to the overall debt was approximately 0.08% due to a large increase in the annual debt raised. Overall collection of arrears is also rising year on year. Of the top 10 metropolitan local authorities in England, Leeds and Wakefield boasted the lowest percentage Council Tax write-off at just 0.5%.
James Anderson, Senior Finance Manager for Kirklees Council said “Some debts may be written off if people have left the area or circumstances have changed but we can add them back on. It doesn’t necessarily mean that we have forgotten about it. We will endeavor to collect if at all possible. The story doesn’t necessarily stop there.”
Source: Examiner Live