FOI Request Council Tax Arrears (2)

Request 101001529673

1. In financial year 2015-2016, how many cases of perceived council tax arrears were there in your area?
2. In how many of these cases did the householder claim the tax was not due?
3. In how many of these cases did the householder officially appeal the grounds upon which the perceived council tax arrears were based?
4. How many cases of perceived council tax arrears were escalated to the Sherriff Officers?
5. How many of these cases were escalated to Sheriffs Officers before any form of official appeal or simple complaint that the householder might have made was addressed?
6. In how many of these cases was it eventually found that no additional council tax was due after all?

Response 29-06-2017

1. During 2015/16 there were 7582 Reminder Notices issued for 2015/16 arrears, there were also 7698 Final Notices issued, which included financial year 2015/16 and also some of these number were for previous years' debts e.g. 2014/15.

2. This information is exempt under Section 12 of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002.  Due to the quantity of accounts and the fact that each individual account would need to be checked to see if a letter was sent claiming the tax was not due, this item is exempt due to the length of time it would take to answer the question (over 15000 accounts, approx. 5 minutes to check each account, time = 1250 hours).

3. I have checked our complaints letters and one complaint regarding the issue of a Final Notice was received.

4. During 2015/16 12,020 accounts were passed to Sheriff Officers, of which 2,799 related to 2015/16 and the remainder to previous years.

5. No cases that were subject to an official appeal were escalated to the Sheriff Officers. Due to the number of accounts and general letters received it would take too long to check every account for a letter (not an official complaint). Therefore this information is exempt under Section 12 of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 - excessive cost of compliance

6. Not applicable, see answer to 5.