£1.1bn uncollected local taxes

2 February 2012

UNCOLLECTED LOCAL TAXES IN ENGLAND AND WALES AMOUNT TO £1.082 BILLION IN 2010/11 GMB STUDY SHOWS

It is a scandal and a disgrace when vital services for our elderly and our children are being slashed due to cuts in funding that more than £1.082 billion in England and Wales is going uncollected in council tax and business rates says GMB

Total uncollected local taxes in England and Wales in 2010/11 amounted to £1.082 billion. Uncollected council taxes amounted to £612,458,780 England in 2010/11. In the same period uncollected non domestic rates were £409,371,840 to give the total uncollected amount in of £1,021,830,620. For Wales uncollected council tax amounted to £36,743,000 while uncollected business rates totaled £23,299,866 to give a total figure of uncollected local taxes in Wales of £.60,042,866.

London has the highest uncollected local taxes in England and Wales with £239,610,000 uncollected. Next in the regional league in England is North West (£153,281,060 total uncollected), South East (£136,973,300 total uncollected), West Midlands (£102,855,860 total uncollected), Yorkshire and the Humber (£99,373,000 total uncollected), Eastern (£92,826,000 total uncollected), South West (£86,060,000 total uncollected), East Midlands (£67,566,400 total uncollected) and North East (£43,285,000 total uncollected).

The table below shows the figures for all 10 regions in England and Wales ranked for English regions by the total uncollected amount highest to lowest.

Birmingham has the highest amount of uncollected taxes of any council in England and Wales at £33.2m. Next is Westminster £29.6m, Manchester £18.4m, Leeds £15.3m, Bradford £13.9m, Cardiff £13.3m, Barnet £13.1m, Sheffield £13.0m, Hammersmith and Fulham £12.7m, Suffolk £11.3m, Salford 310.5m and Bristol £10.3m. The figures for the top 21 councils in England and Wales are set out in note 2 to editors below.

The figures for all 326 councils in England are set out as a PDF, at the foot of the national press release, on http://www.gmb.org.uk/

These figures are from a new analysis by GMB, public services union, of official figures for uncollected councils taxes and uncollected non-domestic rates for the year 2010/11 published by the Department for Communities and Local Government. See note 1 below for sources.

uncollected council taxes 2010-11 (£)*		uncollected non-domestic rates 2010-11 (£)**		total uncollected amount (£)
England	612,458,780		409,371,840		1,021,830,620
Wales		36,743,000		23,299,866		60,042,866
London	132,341,000		107,269,000		239,610,000
North West	93,477,840		59,803,220		153,281,060
South East	82,447,300		54,526,000		136,973,300
West Midlands	56,784,620		46,071,240		102,855,860
Yorkshire and the Humber	62,086,000		37,287,000		99,373,000
Eastern	57,237,000		35,589,000		92,826,000
South West	55,252,000		30,808,000		86,060,000
East Midlands	43,837,020		23,729,380		67,566,400
North East	28,996,000		14,289,000		43,285,000

Paul Kenny, GMB General Secretary said, “It is a scandal and a disgrace, at a time when vital services for our elderly and our children in our local communities are being slashed due to government cuts in funding that more than £1.082 billion in England and Wales is going uncollected in council tax and business rates.

Feeble excuses about being unable to collect these taxes no longer wash.

Urgent reforms to assist hard press council staff to collect these taxes are long overdue. It is high time that local and national politicians threw their weight behind GMB's campaign for changes in the law relating to the way these taxes are collected rather than dismissing the GMB figures as distortions or exaggerations as many of them will do.”

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