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.”
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