Borough apology for council tax shortfall
HUNDREDS of thousands of pounds in council tax has not been collected because of a 'significant and serious' error in the treasurer's department at Eastbourne Borough Council.
The council was this week given a severe rap over the knuckles by East Sussex County Council after it miscalculated the amount of council tax that it could collect to pass on to the county council. The figure is believed to be around 1.2 million.
Each year the borough declares a figure to the county that it will collect from council tax payers. But, and not for the first time, the borough has underestimated the number of homes which receive a council tax discount.
Finance officers at Eastbourne and borough council leader David Tutt have apologised for the error but the county council's lead member for corporate resources, Tony Reid, said he was dismayed at the turn of events.
He said, "This is not the first time the county council, and hence council taxpayers across the whole of East Sussex, will have suffered because of the poor performance of Eastbourne Borough Council in these matters.
"The borough council has a duty to deliver sound financial administration and in my view is failing in that duty. All our taxpayers have a right to expect that they will take action without any further delay to introduce a significant improvement in performance."
Mr Reid said there were regular meetings between East Sussex finance officers and treasurers from county, borough and district councils and at the last meeting Eastbourne officers admitted there were problems.
He said, "Eastbourne indicated that there could be some difficulties and subsequently advised on June 1 in more detail that a review of their own calculations undertaken in May 2009 as part of the final accounts processes has uncovered a technical error, apparently first committed in late 2008 and then repeated in the February 2009 declaration.
"The cumulative loss to East Sussex County Council as a result is 1.2 million which will now fall in 2010/11. This is before any surplus or deficit that arises from actual collection performance in respect of 2009/10.
"In addition it mean that the county council's share of the council tax base could also reduce by some 0.6million from 2010/2011 onwards. In total, therefore, the negative impact from this error on the county council could be some 1.8 million in 2010/11 alone."
The leader of the Conservatives in Eastbourne David Elkin said, "This collection failure by Eastbourne Borough Council is absolutely appalling especially after tens of thousands of pounds of council taxpayers' money was spent on a forensic review of finances which is now confirmed as a complete waste.
"Councillor Tutt should resign as leader of the council as it's clear he has lost control of the public purse. In the longer term residents of both Eastbourne and the whole of East Sussex may well see services threatened by the neglect by the borough council."
Councillor Tutt told the Herald the council had apologised for its error.
"It is a miscalculation of the amount of money that could have been collected," he said. "It is not money lost.
"It is a mistake that had occurred before and we discovered that and believed it had been put right but it hadn't. It has now, and there will be full staff training to make sure it doesn't happen again."
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Saturday 11 February 2012
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