Issue - meetings

The Cabinet Member for Finance, Growth and Core Services presented the latest debt management performance report covering the final quarter of the 2023/24 financial year.

The Cabinet Member commented on the difficulties that many local residents and businesses had experienced during the cost-of-living crisis which, in turn, had impacted on their ability to pay their bills.  Although there were signs that the economy was stabilising, many residents and especially those receiving state benefits continued to struggle to make ends meet.  Nonetheless, the Council was committed to maximising the income due to it in order to protect the services that it provided to the local community.

Despite the economic position, the Council’s debt management service had, in general, been able to maintain collection levels, assisted by a range of new initiatives introduced during 2023/24, and further new initiatives were planned for 2024/25, such as the use of AI systems.  The Cabinet Member also referred to his earlier comments in the meeting on the work carried out to write-off unrecoverable debts, which had resulted in bad debt provision decreasing by £7.4m to £56.6m.

Cabinet resolved to:

(i)  Note the performance of the debt management function carried out by the Council’s Collection service, including the improvements in collection rates and the reduction in arrears since the start of the year;

(ii)  Note the reduction in bad debt provision of £7.4m, primarily due to the write-off of non-recoverable historic debt arrears; and

(iii)  Approve the updated Debt Management Policy 2024, as set out at Appendix A to the report.