Issue - meetings

That the items detailed in the Appendix be considered irrecoverable for the reasons stated and be written off.

A report was submitted informing Members of items deemed to be irrecoverable. For a variety of reasons, from time to time, it was considered that certain items were unable to be recovered from debtors.  When this occurred, it was necessary to write off these balances from the appropriate Council account records.

The Council currently has the responsibility to collect business rates on behalf of Central Government; council tax on behalf of its precepting authorities i.e. Staffordshire County Council, Staffordshire Police Authority and Staffordshire Fire Authority as well as itself; and sundry debt in respect of services provided.  The combined total of this is currently around £90m per annum.

The total being recommended for write off was £298,000 which represented only 0.3% of the total amount due for collection.  This was comprised of business rates (£275,000); council tax (£15,000) and sundry debts (£8,000).

The overall impact of these write offs to the Borough Council was minimal as the write off of business rates was pooled nationally by central government and the writing off of council tax was shared between the precepting authorities – 12% of which was the Borough Council’s share.  The Council had made provision for unrecoverable sums and the amounts recommended for write-off were within the current budgeted bad debt provision.

RESOLVED:

That the items detailed in the Appendix be considered irrecoverable for the reasons stated and be written off.