DEBTS owed to Scottish Borders Council that were written-off in the first six months of 2023/24 amounted to almost £200,000, it has been revealed.

The debts of £198.1k include council tax, non-domestic rates, sundry debtors, housing benefit overpayments and aged debt from the balance sheet.

For the same period in 2021 the local authority wrote-off £212.1k and in 2022 it was £131.5k.

In all cases, a debt will only be written off when at least one of the following occurs

  • Legislation prevents its recovery
  • It is uneconomic to pursue
  • The debtor becomes insolvent
  • All options of recovery have been exhausted, which includes the use of the council’s legal team and the appointed sheriff officers, Walker Love

In a report to next week’s executive committee, Suzy Douglas, the council’s director of finance and procurement, says: “We have made significant progress to reduce the write-offs due to debt becoming time-barred and still monitor this closely to ensure that all avenues are explored in a timely manner to ensure the best recovery outcome.

“As previously reported in the year end 2022/23 report, due to the current cost-of-living crisis we are anticipating that this will cause a higher number of sundry debt accounts being sent to sheriff officers and decree applications being made.”