Council must not be complacent over council tax arrears

The outstanding amount of council tax not collected by Rochdale Council is £4.4M, and half of this is from the last financial year alone.  This however is a better collection rate than many authorities in Greater Manchester.  The total of £4.4 Million goes as far back as 1993.
 
Commenting on the council tax collection rate, leader of Rochdale Council, Cllr Alan Taylor, said:
 
"Whilst we appreciate that the council tax rate of collection of 96.6% is ahead of most of the council's in Greater Manchester, we must not be complacent.  The fact that the budget is tight means that the council has to be more effective in chasing overdue council tax.  One thing that residents in Rochdale, Heywood, Pennines and Middleton have to realise is that we are a now a listening council and anyone struggling to pay needs to get in touch with us and I am sure that we can come to an arrangement to best meet any difficulties.
 
"I know what it is like to be struggling financially and I can assure people that actively discussing any financial problems with the council is better than pretending that the problem is not there.  We will not write off any debts, but we appreciate that the council tax can be unfair; unfortunately until the present situation is sorted by the government we are all in the same boat.  I actively await the results of the Lyons Review by the government and hope that it will reflect the difficulties that many residents face.  We need a fairer local system that is based on ability to pay, until then, to function as a council, we need to collect overdue debts."

Conservative Group Leader, Cllr Ashley Dearnley, said: "The Conservative Group is, as always, determined to support positive measures to ensure that as much council tax as possible is collected. We are proud that last year, when the councils finances were under Conservative control, we succeeded in collecting the highest amount of money ever, at 96.6%.

"We always want to improve the collection rate and if we can collect all the money owed to the council it will probably mean no increase in council tax."