Council delivering increased council tax collection rates, says LibDem Finance Convener

10.07.00am UTC (GMT +0000) Wed 3rd May 2006

Cllr Fraser Macpherson welcomes increased council tax collection rates

Dundee City Council's LibDem Convener of Finance, Councillor Fraser Macpherson has welcomed new figures that show a continued and sustained improvement in the amount of council tax collected by the end of the financial year in which it was due.

The in-year collection figure for 2005/06 has reached 90.7% which is an increase of 3.6% over the previous financial year 2004/05.

Councillor Macpherson said: "This is the fourth year running that we have improved our in-year council tax collection figure and we have firmly established a positive trend. I am particularly pleased that we have reached our target in year collection figure of 90% two years earlier that planned.

"This is largely due to the hard work of the finance revenues staff who have introduced and implemented a new recovery process which has been fully operational since February this year.

"As a result of the new system we have increased payment arrangements of £1.6 million from 7,272 debtor accounts to £6.7 million from 19,450 accounts.

"We have also increased the numbers and value of monthly payments made by direct debit to a level where they are now accounting for almost half of the council tax income. This helps with our cash flow and the amount of interest we can generate.

"Although our in-year and overall collection rates continue to improve, there is still a lot to be done and I can assure the Dundee public that we will continue to pursue all outstanding council tax debt from previous years."

Related Link:

"Working to keep Council Tax increases as low as possible" - story from February 2006.