Issue - meetings

Report of the Executive Director of Corporate Resources and Customer Services

The Committee considered the report of the Executive Director of Corporate Resources and Customer Services. As outlined within the Council’s Schemes of Financial Delegation, all outstanding debts over £10,000 could not be written off without the approval of the Audit and Governance Committee.

The report set out that the Council was unable to follow a business-as-usual debt management programme, including the writing-off of bad debt, due to restrictions in place during the pandemic. Therefore, the report was the first to request approval to write-off unrecoverable debt for some time and so amounts were higher than would usually be considered by the Committee.

The Committee submitted the following questions to the Principal Revenues Manager who stated he would respond to the Committee in due course:

·       How many CCGs were obtained for these debts?

·       How many debts were referred to debt collection agencies to collect?

·       What has the cost been to the Council?

·       How many of the claims were being overseen by a Trustee or official receiver?

·       How many claims had been made against deceased estates to recover the debts?

·       Had the High Sherriff ever been involved?

·       In respect of the businesses and the impact of COVID, how many of the businesses had received financial support?

·       What mitigating steps were being included to avoid this level of debt being written off in the future?

RESOLVED: That