FI15000
Request
- The number of people to date who have fallen behind with their council tax in the current financial year;
- The number who have been issued with a liability order as a result of non-payment;
- The number who have paid within 7 days;
- The number who have reached a separate agreement for paying any sums outstanding;
- The number who have cited Covid as a reason for non-payment;
- In relation to historic debt, what is the amount that the council has written off because it has reached the six-year limit for pursuing outstanding sums?
- In relation to 1-5, does the council hold data for the previous corresponding year/time period? If so, please provide the relevant information.
Response
1 The data below relates to reminders/final notices and summons (recovery notices) issued from 1 April 2024. Please note that a recovery notice can cover more than one financial year. Not every reminder issued this year will be for someone that has fallen behind in the current financial year, some will be previous years. The numbers below were issued to a total of 7853 accounts. For example, one person (account) could have received two reminders and a final notice (three notices).
|
Reminder
|
12,979
|
|
Final Notice
|
3,577
|
|
Summons
|
597
|
|
Total
|
17,153
|
2 Liability orders granted since 1 April 2024 total 989 covering the following financial years. If the customer had a multi-year debt, the account will be included in the figures for each year.
|
Year
|
Number of accounts
|
|
2018
|
39
|
|
2019
|
17
|
|
2020
|
26
|
|
2021
|
60
|
|
2022
|
220
|
|
2023
|
885
|
|
2024
|
0
|
|
Total
|
1247
|
3 I can confirm that the Council holds information falling within the description specified in your request, however it is not readily available as a manual search of each account would need to be undertaken. From our preliminary assessment, we have estimated that the cost of complying with your request would exceed the ‘appropriate limit’. The appropriate limit has been specified in regulations and for Local Government it is set at £450. This represents the estimated cost of one person spending 2½ working days in determining whether the information is held, locating, retrieving and extracting the data. I regret therefore, that on this occasion I must refuse this part of your request in accordance with Section 12(1) of the Freedom of Information Act.
4 The number of special arrangements that have been set up since 01/04/24 is below together with the year it relates to. Please note, if the SPAR covered three years’ worth of debt, it will be counted in each year.
|
Year
|
Number of accounts
|
|
2017
|
2
|
|
2018
|
3
|
|
2019
|
10
|
|
2020
|
14
|
|
2021
|
36
|
|
2022
|
125
|
|
2023
|
646
|
|
2024
|
390
|
|
Total
|
1,226
|
5 The Council does not hold this information.
6 There is no 6-year limitation for the collection of Council Tax providing a bill has been issued, reminders and summonses issued, and a Liability Order granted within that period.
7 This information has been provided above, where possible.