Councillor Phil Davies introduced the report of the Head of Financial Services, setting out details of Housing Benefit overpayments requested to be written off.

RESOLVED:

That the report be noted and the debts be written-off as detailed in the report. 

Councillor Phil Davies introduced a report by the Director of Resources, recommending the writing off of £192,100.00 in outstanding client contributions which was part of the process of cleansing the long outstanding DASS debt identified in the Independent Report by Eugene Sullivan considered by the Cabinet at its meeting on 23 May 2013 (Minute No. 248 refers.).

Councillor Phil Davies informed that no stone was being left unturned in the Council’s efforts to collect all the debt that it could possibly collect.

RESOLVED:

That the report be noted and the debts be written-off as detailed in the report.

Councillor Phil Davies introduced a report by the Director of Resources that recommended the writing off of £130,137.36 in outstanding client contributions.  This was all part of the process of the ongoing review and cleansing of all long outstanding DASS debt identified in the Independent Report by Eugene Sullivan considered by the Cabinet at its meeting on 23 May 2013.  (Minute No. 248 refers.) 

The Cabinet noted the total historical debt at the time of the Sullivan Report relating to outstanding client contributions and now processed by the Collection and Recovery Team within the Personal Finance Unit as follows: 

Written off to date  £2,812,410.08

Paid In Full  £1,703,565.00

Part Paid  £  702,894.08

Instalments arranged  £  134,563.75

Cancelled Debt  £  321,267.49

Referred to Legal Services  £  920,306.74

TOTAL PROCESSED DEBT  £6,595,007.14

The Cabinet also noted that work remained ongoing in this section as well as in liaison with the Head of Legal and Member Services and his staff.  Also, the progress on the historical debt would be monitored in order to establish the optimum structure for a permanent recovery team.

Write-off values were set out in detail in the report for Members’ information.

RESOLVED:

That the report and, particularly, the write-offs of debts be noted.