ALMOST £1.6million of unpaid debt has been written off by Southend Council in the past year.

More than half of the total, £900,000, is made up of unpaid council tax and business rates.

The rest includes housing benefit which was claimed fraudulently or by mistake, but the council has failed to get the money back from tenants, as well as unpaid rent to South Essex Homes.

Councillors expressed concern at the amount of uncollected money during an audit committee meeting.

Deputy leader John Lamb (Con, West Leigh) said: “This is a lot of money which we seem to be writing off.

“When you look at how money seems to be more scarce, what are we doing to make our system more robust so we can send bailiffs and sell off goods if can’t get that money?”

A council report on the non-tax or rate debts written off said in 2009-10 there had been 1,010 cases totalling £445,267, out of a total debt raised of £23million. Of this, almost half – £214,000 – related to housing benefit the council wanted to claw back.

In addition, South Essex Homes, which manages the town’s 7,000 council homes, has written off £244,000 of debt.

The report also said £213,000 of unpaid council tax was written off in 2009-10 out of a total collected of £66million, while £667,000 of unpaid business rates was written off out of a £44million total.

The figures do not include unpaid car parking and penalty charges.

Martin Hone, the council’s head of finance, added: “We have a successful hit rate for prosecution for benefit fraud.

“These are people who have claimed benefits, and some of them we will have prosecuted, but we’ve not been able to get the money.

“We regularly pursue housing benefit, and we are very successful. We don’t write off debt lightly.

“We are talking one or two of the big items here out of the many thousands of claimants.

“Each one is bad, but a very small fraction of the total.”

Mr Hone added the council’s council tax collection rate is one of the best in the county, and pointed out it collects 96.7 per cent of its council tax against 85.9 per cent for Basildon. Chairman Brian Kelly (Con, Southchurch) requested a further report.