Revealed: Wolverhampton Council cancelled £2m in debts last year

The figure was revealed in a budget monitoring report presented to the council’s cabinet for approval at its meeting in July.

The debts come from a variety of sources with unpaid council tax contributing the most unrecoverable income.

Councillor Louise Miles, Wolverhampton cabinet member for resources, said: “Debt write-off is against rigorous criteria and is not done lightly."

The report says 1,450 council tax debts worth £823,330 were written off in the year ending March 2024 with the worst cases requiring approval from the cabinet.

The highest single figure to be chalked off was £9,326 after a debtor could not be traced.

The next largest pot of missing cash was non-domestic rates at £610,600, with the biggest single unpaid bill standing at £50,202.

Collection of the largest amount was prohibited by law – which means the council has run out of time to take certain types of action to recover the debt.

The council cancelled 235 debts where services were provided to individuals and businesses but money was not collected.

These ‘sundry debts’ clocked up to £445,053. Out of that total £16,300 was written off because debtors were deceased and there was no estate to claim from.

Unpaid council rent accounted for £242,989 of unrecoverable debt with the largest single amount given as £6,334 where the debtor was unable to manage their own affairs.

The report says: “Debts are only written off as a last resort when all feasible recovery action has been exhausted.

“If the situation surrounding an individual case changes in the future, steps would be taken to pursue the debt, despite the debt having been written off.”