Issue - meetings

The Director of Finance and the Executive Member for Environment, Finance and Governance submitted a report the purpose of which was to seek approval of the Corporate Debt Write Off Policy.

The purpose of the new policy was to provide a corporate approach to the writing off of bad and irrecoverable debts in a fair and timely manner, whilst seeking to maximise the opportunity for collection thereby minimising the need for write off.

All service areas were required to follow this policy to allow the Council to operate a consistent approach to debt write off, whilst having due regard to the customer’s ability to pay.

Whilst some parts of debt write off were governed by particular legislative requirements such as Council Tax, Business Rates, Adult Social Care Debt, etc., wherever possible the overall principle of debt write off should be efficient and effective, always giving consideration to the financial impact on the Council when debt was written off.

The policy would underpin any specific recovery strategies and would be applied across all directorates.

The new policy would also support cross directorate communication where a shared customer base existed.  It was envisaged that the approach would work within Data Protection legislation, and should be considered at a corporate level to reduce multiple officer engagements across directorates with the same resident and or business base.

Following a vote, it was ORDERED as follows:

That

a)     the Corporate Debt Write Off Policy be approved.

b)     he Budget Policy Framework and the officer delegated scheme of delegation be amended

c)     delegated authority be given to the Section 151 Officer to approve any future modifications to the Corporate Debt Write Off Policy.

The Executive Member for Environment and Finance & Governance and the Director of Finance submitted a report for the Executive’s consideration. The purpose of the report was to provide information on a new policy that aimed to provide a corporate approach to the writing off of bad and irrecoverable debts in a fair and timely manner, whilst seeking to maximise the opportunity for collection thereby minimising the need for write off.

All service areas were required to follow the policy to allow the Council to operate a consistent approach to debt write off, whilst having due regard to the customer’s ability to pay.

Whilst some parts of debt write off were governed by particular legislative requirements such as Council Tax, Business Rates, Adult Social Care Debt, etc, wherever possible the overall principle of debt write off should be efficient and effective, always giving consideration to the financial impact on the Council when debt was written off.

This policy planned to underpin any specific recovery strategies and would be applied across all directorates.

The new policy planned to also support cross directorate communication where a shared customer base existed. It was envisaged that the approach would work within Data Protection legislation, and should be considered at a corporate level to reduce multiple officer engagements across directorates with the same resident and/or business base.

The general principles adopted in the policy were detailed at paragraph 12 of the submitted report. The full Corporate Debt Write Off Policy was included at Appendix A.

ORDERED

1.      That the Corporate Debt Write Off Policy be noted and endorsed.

2.      That the policy be referred to full Council to amend the Budget Policy Framework and the officer scheme of delegation.

3.      That delegated authority be provided to the Section 151 Officer to approve any future modifications to the policy.

REASON

The policy planned to allow Middlesbrough Council to provide a comprehensive framework for debt write off which was consistent across service areas / various types of debt. It also established a disciplined approach across the Council for the writing off of those debts that were recoverable.