ALMOST £2.9 million of uncollected business rates were written off by Bradford Council last year, with some of the debts dating back to 2005.

A new report into how the Council collects business rates reveals the "challenges" officers have faced, such as businesses going bankrupt while owing hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Bradford Council collects rates from all businesses in the district, and keep 49 per cent. Fifty per cent is paid to central government, and one per cent is paid to the West Yorkshire Fire Authority.

Last year the Council was due to receive over £140.7 million in business rates, although over 2.4 per cent of this went uncollected. This year the Council is aiming to collect £144.1 million.

With government funding to Councils due to end in the coming years, local authorities will rely more on business rates and Council Tax as their main source of income.

The report will be discussed by the Council's Corporate Overview and Scrutiny Committee this evening.

It reveals that the total business rate arrears, as at 31 March 2018, still being collected is around £8m. Almost £2 million of this debt dates back over two years.

The Council takes court action against around 2,000 businesses to enforce payment each year, according to the report.

It also says: "Generally, Bradford’s experience has been of receiving less business rates income

than anticipated. This has mainly been due to successful appeals against rateable values, leading to a high cost of refunds backdated over a number of years.

The report says: "Some businesses will be made bankrupt or wound up. However, there may be insufficient assets to clear the outstanding debt. In these cases the debt must be ‘written-off’. These sums can be considerable."

It reveals that one business owner, only referred to as "Mr X" went bankrupt owing the Council over £200,000 in business rates.

The report says: "Mr X failed to make payments on his accounts. Numerous attempts were made to recover the money due to the authority culminating in a bankruptcy petition being served. Whilst Mr X did make an arrangement to pay the accounts after the initial bankruptcy petition was presented, no payments were made. Consequently, the petition was represented and the bankruptcy granted. The bankruptcy process is on-going. It is not known at this time if, or how much of, the outstanding £201,406 debt will be recovered."

The Committee meets in City Hall at 5.30pm.