Information obtained by the offices of Paul Masterton MP and Jackson Carlaw MSP show that East Renfrewshire Council has written off over £776,000.00 in unpaid Non-Domestic Rates (Business Rates) during the last 10 financial years.
The information going back to financial year 2007/2008 shows that £776,150.39 has been written off as unrecoverable.
In writing off Non Domestic Rates, the criteria require that the business has ceased trading or is being liquidated.
East Renfrewshire Council currently has 72 ongoing legal actions for the recovery of Non Domestic Rates for the years in question.
This follows revelations that £1,321,732 is owed but has yet to be paid to East Renfrewshire Council for financial years 2012/13 to 2016/17.
The local authority is currently consulting on its 2018 – 2021 budget, which is seeing the Council seek to make budget savings of £26 million.
Commenting Eastwood MSP, Jackson Carlaw said:
“Whilst I appreciate that the collection rates are consistently in excess of 95% for in-year collection, the amounts of money having to be written off are not insignificant for a small local authority.
"Even with the collection rates rising to just over 98% with several years' recovery activity and the loss of revenue being less than 0.1% of the sums billed each year a mentality that this loss is inevitable cannot be allowed to creep in."
East Renfrewshire MP, Paul Masterton, said:
“It is helpful to know that some of these older debts are protected from no longer being recoverable through the Summary Warrant process.
"Yet although this process allows the Council to apply a 10% surcharge on the outstanding balance and does protect claims for longer, it is clear from the figures written off that we still have many businesses who will never have to or be able to pay the monies they owe."
East Renfrewshire Conservatives Council Group Leader, Cllr Stewart Miller added:
"With the Council consulting on their 2018 - 2021 budget - with all its proposed cuts - they must prioritise ingathering unpaid and owing monies as any business would."