Bolton Council votes to triple 'bad debt' it can write-off

Until now Bolton Council officers had the authority to write off a maximum of £5,000 worth of bad debts in each individual case.

But at a meeting at town hall last week a motion was put to councillors to approve a scheme of delegation that gave unelected officers the power to write off up to £15,000 in each case.

Cllr David Grant, of Horwich South and Blackrod, said: “Transparency in local government is key and to have no oversight in significant write-offs I believe is a dangerous prospect.

“With the council cutting frontline services, raising taxes and removing funds from allocated community funding we need to be able to scrutinise as much as possible potential write offs.”

Cllr Grant addressing the meeting (Image: Bolton Council)

Cllr Grant was addressing a full meeting of Bolton Council on Wednesday October 9 when he said that elected members needed oversight of issues like these.

He said: “And that includes what public money we are agreeing to write off.”

The members were voting on a scheme of delegation, which sets out what powers are given to unelected town hall officials.

This included the “authority to write off bad debts except where precluded from doing so by law up to a maximum of £15,000 in each case.”

But larger scale individual write-offs, like the decision to write-off around £1.2M owed to the council by car park company NCP, will still need to be approved by elected officials. 

Cllr Grant proposed and amendment keeping the limit at £5,000, supported by his colleague Cllr Charlotte Moncado-Sear, of Horwich North.

In response, council leader Cllr Nick Peel said that the write off was an important issue but pointed out that the £5,000 limit had been in place for around 20 years.

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He said that there needed to be a “fine balance” between oversight and the running of a large organisation like Bolton Council.

Cllr Peel said: “Debt write offs for council tax, businesses etc go through a vigorous process before we get to them and we only ever get the that part when all other avenues have been exhausted.”

He added: “So I think its sensible for an organisation like Bolton Council to raise the limit from £5,000 to £15,000.”

After going to a vote, the amendment was defeated and councillors voted to raise the value of write-offs as originally proposed.