Tamworth Council writing off over £160,000 of 'bad' debt

Tamworth Borough Council has agreed to write off over £160,000 in ‘bad’ debt for the period between April 1 2023 and December 31 2023. The total debt written off is £160,062.71 which is £60,534.69 less than the financial period last year.

Five areas have had debt written off including; council tax, £9,053.69; business rates, £26,177.07; sundry income, £30,100.94; housing benefit overpayments, £22,532.32 and housing, £72,198.69.

Only cabinet is currently authorised to write off debt more than £10,000, however an executive director or an assistant director is able to write debt off up to £5,000.

The report to cabinet members states: “There will be situations where the debt recovery process fails to recover some or all of the debt and will need to be considered for write off in accordance with the schemes of delegation prescribed in the Corporate Credit Policy. 

“The Council views such cases very much as exceptions. Before writing off debt, the Council will satisfy itself that all reasonable steps have been taken to collect it and that no further recovery action is possible or practicable. It will take into account the age, size and types of debt together with any factors that it feels are relevant to the individual case”

Council Leader Carol Dean commented: “In the tables I’ve seen it does show this is going in the right direction for a lot of the areas. In 22/23 our council tax debt was £22,000, this year was £9,000.

“The business rates again last year was £92,000, this year was £26,000. The only one that’s a little bit troubling is the housing one and I think I would like a bit more information on that but we do have to be mindful that many of our residents and customers have been financially impacted by the pandemic and the cost of living crisis.

“It should be noted that we don’t consider signing of these debts unless we’ve pursued them to the fullest extent but in cases where extreme hardship is identified discretionary housing payments and additional council tax reductions have been made and consideration given to writing off accumulated arrears.

“So the council is committed to ensuring debt write offs are kept to a minimum by taking all reasonable steps to collect the monies due and there will be situations where debt recovery process fails to recover some or all of the debt and this will need to be considered for write off in accordance with the corporate credit policy.”