Council to write off more than £3m of debt owed to them

Newsdesk • Published 9 Feb 2012 07:15 3 Comments

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MORE than £3m worth of debt owed to the council will be written off if proposals for a new debt recovery policy are given the green light.

Slough Borough Council's revised debt management plan aims to improve income collection as well as reduce debt liability.

The report, which will be presented to cabinet members on Tuesday, would see £3.1m of debt, that the council considers unrecoverable, cleared off their books.

Council leader Rob Anderson said: "Sometimes it is not economical to chase debts and, on other occasions, companies have gone bankrupt or council tenants have moved on and we can't trace them.

"We will continue to pursue collection of all the debt that is less than six years old. Writing it off is simply an accounting action and does not affect, in any way, our determination to recover all money owed to us."

It is made up of amounts ranging from 1p to £40,000 with debts including housing rent, national non-domestic rates or council tax.

Roger Parkin, director of customer and transactional services, said: "We have created this new policy to ensure we are providing fair debt collection and recovery - helping to reduce the effect of debt on those on low incomes.

"In this way we hope to protect council tax payers from those who deliberately do not pay, leaving others to shoulder the burden."

The new policy aims to reduce the number of debts being collected, ensure invoices are issued on a timely basis and to lay out the permitted means the council can enforce payments.

This article appeared in Slough Observer 09 Feb 12

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BigDot
6 posts
Feb 9, 08:58
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Quite right too! People in Slough shouldn't have to pay for debts which have partly been caused by incompetent administration anyway. Slough Borough Council are a bunch of monkeys, they give money away by accident, fail to recover it and then don't have the resources to care for the council tax payers in the borough. Worst council I ever experienced!

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JUDGE1066
35 posts
Feb 9, 18:16
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Such a poor poor show by the Council, honestly I have never experienced a Council like it, hang your heads in shame, not only do they allow 3 million to be wiped off the slate, they destroy any heritage this town has or had, Councillors with a mission to bulldoze anything they regard as an eyesore, I'm totally ashamed to live in this town.

If it had any sense of community the people of Slough would stand up to this motley crew, but it doesn't, why? because years of a Labour run Council has destroyed it with it's allocation of housing and open door policy to anyone who turns up on it's doorstep, thus we have a town with no cohesion or community, there are no go areas which have been ghettoised, It's a truely shocking state of affairs.

NB: Slough Observer, if you need to censor my posts, do so, but at least admit that this paper is biased towards the Council, we live in a country that is supposed to allow free speech, do not deleted posts just because you don't agree with them!

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GisellE6
14 posts
Feb 11, 01:04
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That is so BIG of them to wipe £3M of the slate especially when it was them that misplaced or misused our taxes in the first place.

Have you seen how many facilities in underprivileged wards they have also wiped out.

In one foul swoop they have managed to eliminate play centres, charities, the University (the key to higher education and the key to our prosperity), transport and highways. They will stop at nothing until they have destroyed the town and it's people. They can guarantee that no one will stand against them as they have totally divided and conquered the fractured communities so there are no communities as such, just wards with names and bad reputations to keep.

Those that are on low incomes or no incomes better make the time to grab a free level 1 or 2 course while you can and study and try and claw your way out of this dire situation before they start closing down schools or start cutting adult education.

The councillors have a cheek to brag about how Slough is prosperous, we are virtually bottom on health, crime and proverty. Take a closer look at Britwell, Chalvey, Manor Park and Stoke wards if you dare. They have virtually no one showing up at parish meetings because they have lost their guts to defend what little they have left. Many of them do not have vital charities, play centres and other clubs and organisations.

Look at Windsor who are running their town like a dream, they've managed to REDUCE not just freeze the council tax and also save millions on their refuse recycling contracts which is better for the residents and their pockets.

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