Good record on tax and rates debt

I was disappointed to read the comments from Councillor Murphy contained in the article ‘Failure to collect tax millions by council’ which appeared in last week’s paper. I therefore want to take the opportunity to redress the balance and provide further information which didn’t appear in the original story.

Peterborough is one of the fastest growing cities in the country, which means that each year there are more homes and businesses than ever to collect payment from. Despite this increase, our collection rates have remained consistently high.

Indeed our cross- party budget working group, including two of Councillor Murphy’s Labour colleagues, has reviewed this issue and confirmed they agree that we take all appropriate action to recover outstanding debt.

For 2015/16 we have so far collected 96.4 per cent of the council tax owed to us and 97.7 per cent of the business rate bill. Yes, the newspaper wasaccurate whenitsaid that £5.5million remained uncollected. However to put this in context, it is a relatively small percentage - 3.1 per cent of the total £176.3 million - and we take every step we can to chase the remainder.

In fact, since these figures were produced we have collected a further £400,000 of the outstanding debt owedfor 2015/16 - reducing it £5.1million.

It is inevitable when coll ecting council tax f rom 80,000 properties and business rates from 5,801 companies that some bill payers will not settle the amount owing on time. That is why we continue to pursue the money long aftertheendofthefinancial year for which it is due.

In fact, since April we have used our powers to collect £5.4million of outstanding council tax andbusinessrates from previous years.

If a customer fails to pay their bill after a reminder is sent, they are issued with a court summons. The court can grant a liability order which allows us to use a range of powers to collect the money.

For both council tax and business rates debt, we have the power to instruct bailiffs to seize items up to the value of the amount owed. Depend- ing on the amount, this could be household items or even a car. We utilise these methods to ensure all collectable debt is recovered.

Despite this robust action, it is unfortunately inevitable that somedebtwill ultimately have to be written off.

There are a number of reasons why this occurs with the most common being where a company has gone into liquidation, anindividual hasbeen made bankrupt, a debtor has diedwithnofundsavailableor weareunabletotraceadebtor (and the cost does not justify the debt).

However, this only happens as a last resort when we haveexhaustedeverypossible avenue for payment.

Until that time, we will continue to use the powers available to pursue the debt outstanding to us. Councillor David Seaton Cabinet member

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