Unpaid council tax bills in Dorset

Councillors have been told that it could take about three years to return to pre-pandemic levels. The majority of the problems have been caused by the pandemic and the fact that the courts were not sitting for several months – leading to delays in recovering unpaid bills.

A joint Dorset-BCP committee was told on Monday that there was no concern over the current non-payment figures and most of those who were behind were likely to agree to payment plans to get them back on course over the next 12-18 months.

Business rate collections are also down across both council areas but many of these will be helped by Government grants.

Councillors at the Stour Valley and Poole Partnership were told that some of the business debt is likely to be written off where companies have ceased trading during the Covid period, and in other cases paid to the council by the Government.

Many of those paying business rates have switched from 10 payments during the year, to 12, to help spread the payment load.

The partnership board meeting heard that a new telephone queuing service was coming into use which would help those claiming benefits and discounts on their council tax and would tell those calling whether it was worth holding on, due to the length of queue, or whether they would be better to call again. The changes will double the number of people able to queue from 15 to 30.

Head of the partnership, Paul Hudson said that while the overall number of telephone calls were down most of those calling by phone tended to be the more complex cases which were difficult for customers to deal with online. He said the councils were likely to always need to offer a personal service.

The meeting heard that for both councils face to face services are now operating again – a move welcomed by Cllr Andrew Kerby: “Fifteen minutes of face to face can save several hours of people getting it wrong and sending in the wrong documents,” he said.