Issue - meetings

The Cabinet Member for Finance, Growth and Investment introduced the performance report for the fourth quarter of the financial year 2015/16 in respect of the debt management function carried out by the Revenues and Benefits Service within Elevate East London.

It was noted that, despite the continuing pressures on local residents’ finances, the rate of collection in cash terms had increased.  Cabinet Members particularly commended Elevate’s performance in collecting 98.2% of national non-domestic rates (NNDR) due in 2015/16, which was the highest collection rate since 2009/10.

The Cabinet Member also referred to the plan to no longer publicise the top ten debtors as the practice had not led to any recovery actions since its inception.

The Cabinet resolved to:

(i)  Note the performance of the debt management function carried out by the Revenues and Benefits service operated by Elevate East London, including the performance of enforcement agents;

(ii)  Note the debt write-offs for the fourth quarter of 2015/16; and

(iii)  Agree that the practice of publicising the top 10 debtors cease, as there had been no examples where members of the public had identified any of those debtors which would have enabled Elevate to re-instate recovery action.