NEARLY £3.2 million in council tax was not collected by district councils across south Worcestershire last year, according to new figures.

Worcester, Wychavon and Malvern Hills were all owed more money when compared with the previous year.

Large amounts of uncollected council tax means that law-abiding residents end up having to pay more, but councils say they have acknowledged this and are making efforts to bring the outstanding funds in.

Between April 2008 and April 2009 Wychavon had the biggest amount of uncollected debts, £1,382,000, from its 117,100 residents, while cash-strapped Worcester was owed £929,000 from its 93,700 households, and Malvern Hills £885,000 from a population of roughly 74,300.

In the previous year Wychavon District Council was owed £913,000, Worcester city £863,000 and Malvern Hills £476,000.

Officers said the figures pale in comparison to the amount they do collect but that they are taking steps to reduce the amount that goes uncollected by the council, such as the controversial single person council tax discount review currently taking place which has upset pensioners and hit the front page of your Worcester News on Saturday.

Grahame Lucas, head of financial services at Worcester, said the city collects about £50 million in council tax every year and it was practically impossible to have a 100 per cent success rate – the budget is always set on the assumption that the council will not be able to collect a certain amount. “It might be because somebody has died and they have nothing left in their estate,” he said. “Or it might be that they have gone on a moonlight flit and we can’t touch them, but the important thing is that we do everything we can to collect these arrears.”

Mr Lucas said he expected that the majority of the £929,000 the council is owed has already been collected or will be collected in the coming months. “I’d expect we wouldn’t have to write off more than a third of that and we would only write that off when it becomes impossible to collect it or extremely uneconomic,” he said.

Vic Allison, deputy managing director at Wychavon, said more than £700,000 of the £1,382,000 owed has already been collected, contributing to the £58 million that council tax bills bring in annually.

He said all three councils in south Worcestershire have a high percentage of successful council tax collection – Wychavon’s is 97.6 per cent.

“We’re all there or there abouts and the figures are relatively good given the recession,” he said. “It’s always more difficult to get council tax in on time then.”

Meanwhile, the amount of uncollected non-domestic rates, or business rates, which are set by the Government and collected by councils on behalf of it before being distributed to local authorities, was £864,000 for Wychavon, £610,000 for Worcester, and £275,000 for Malvern Hills.