Content

Salford City Council - Record of
Decision
 
I, Councillor Jack Youd, Deputy
City Mayor and Lead Member for Finance, Support Services &
Regeneration, in exercise of the powers contained within the
Council Constitution, do hereby
approve:
 
The write off of irrecoverable debts set out
below:
 
Council Tax - Council
Tax £1,133,970.19
 
Housing
Benefit Overpayments - £134,711.61
 
The
Reasons are:
The liabilities mentioned in
the report for write-off are irrecoverable.
 
Options considered and rejected were:
To leave outstanding amounts on
the accounts for a further period.
 
Assessment of Risk:
These write offs are
from debts over a 30 year period but predominately from the last 20
financial years. A breakdown of net write offs by year is in the
Year-by-Year breakdown provided in the report.  To provide some context, the value of these write
offs actioned over the last 5 months, which are mainly for arrears
debts, is approximately equivalent to 0.5% of the Council Tax
collectable debit for 2025/2026.
 
The
source of funding is:
The bad debt
provision
 
Legal
Advice obtained:

Supplied by: Ashley Marks, Principal Lawyer:

I have looked at the write off report
for the period 01-FEB-2025 to 30-JUN-2025 and can confirm that the
specific write off categories are all clear and cover the most
common scenarios i.e. deceased, absconded, insolvent or
uneconomical to pursue . These are all cases where the best legal
advice would be that the debt be written off as
non-recoverable.
 
Financial Advice obtained:
Supplied by: David Eden,
Finance Manager:
There are sufficient provisions
available to cover the cost of the proposed write offs.
 
Procurement Advice
obtained: N/A
 
HR Advice
obtained: N/A
 
Climate Change Advice
obtained: N/A
 
The following documents have
been used to assist the decision process:
Lead Member Report.
Some of the relevant documents
contain exempt or confidential information and are not available
for public inspection.
Other documents which are in
the public domain are the relevant write-off strategies.
 
Contact
Officer: Penny Mitchell, Service Manager – Council Tax
and BetterOff               
 
Email:penny.mitchell@salford.gov.uk
 
This decision is not subject to
consideration by another Lead Member.
 
The appropriate scrutiny panel to
call-in the decision is the Overview and Scrutiny Board.

 
 
 
Signed: Councillor Jack Youd                                              
Dated: 8th July 2025
Deputy City Mayor and Lead Member for Finance, Support Services
& Regeneration
 

 
This decision was published on 9th July 2025.
 
This decision will come into force at
4.00 p.m. on 16th July 2025, unless it is called-in in accordance with the
decision-making process rules.