Issue - meetings

As detailed in the recommendation.

Councillor Bibby introduced the report and said a recent report to the Community and Housing Overview and Scrutiny Committee provided the latest operational update on the collection of housing rent, along with proposals to improve the collections by taking earlier court action.

This report set out proposals to amend the Corporate Debt Recovery Policy and to strengthen the debt recovery process for housing rent.

The key change was a documented threshold for taking court action against contract holders who owed the equivalent of 12 weeks rent and/or £1,500 and who were not engaging with the Council.

Other minor changes to the Corporate Debt Recovery Policy related to write off authorisations and would replicate recent changes to the Financial Procedure Rules whereby the Corporate Finance Manager now had autonomy to write off single debts up to £10,000 (instead of £5,000).  Debts between £10,000 and £25,000 would

continue to be written off in consultation with the Cabinet Member and debts above £25,000 were referred to Cabinet prior to write off.

            The Chief Officer (Governance) explained that the proposed change was presented to Corporate Resources Overview and Scrutiny Committee the previous week and was positively received.

RESOLVED:

That the proposed changes to the Corporate Debt Recovery Policy to strengthen the collection of Housing Rent by taking court action, as a default position, in cases where contract holders were not making payment, and were 12 weeks in arrears and/or who owed £1,500 or more be approved.