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Improvement in council tax collection rates |
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Wednesday, 27 June 2007 |
Council tax collection rates have improved from the previous financial year in 27 councils, with three remaining the same and only two, Eilean Siar and Glasgow, failing to maintain their 2005-06 collection rates.
Provisional figures just released by Audit Scotland in its Statistical
Publication Notice for the 2006-2007 financial year have estimated the
total Council Tax billed for Scotland at £1.87bn, with £1.75bn being
collected by the end of March 2007.
The overall collection rate was 93.8 per cent, with local figures
ranging from 86.0 per cent in Glasgow, to a high of 97.8 per cent in
Orkney.
The drop in collection rates was very small, only 0.1% in Glasgow, despite the introduction of a new collection system.
According to Glasgow’s treasurer, councillor Stephen Curran, “we have
been able to introduce a new system without a reduction in collection
rates and I’m confident that over the next three years we will see in
year collection rates of over 90 per cent”.
However, Tory finance spokesman Derek Brownlee criticised Glasgow's
collection rate. "The 86 per cent collection rate in Labour-controlled
Glasgow is appalling, and an actual decrease from last year’s total.
Glasgow City Council need to assess their methods, because whatever
they’re doing, it isn’t working."
He was also critical of Scottish collection figures as a whole. "We had
hoped that this year's collection rates would show a marked improvement
on last year’s collection rate of 93.3 per cent. Whilst there has been
a slight increase, up to 93.8 per cent, that still means £116m has been
uncollected this year alone.
"Although there is room for improvement across the board, these figures
clearly show that for the most recent set of council tax statistics,
every council where the Conservatives were in administration had a
higher than average level of collection. In other words, taxpayers
living in Conservative-controlled areas were not penalised for those
who would not pay."
No one has commented on this article.
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 27 June 2007 )
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