HALTON Council has written off £3 for every £1 collected in the past three years, a major review of the housing service revealed this week.

A staggering £0.371 million has been written off in the past five years - that's equivalent to one week's rent per property per year.

Halton, which has a housing stock of 7,800, had the highest write-offs per property during 1996/97 for neighbouring authorities and the second highest for comparable authorities.

These startling statistics were presented to the Widnes Area Housing Sub-committee this week.

Tenant representatives said this week they had been kept in the dark and were shocked to discover the extent of the debt which has been written off.

One tenant said: "We were kept in the dark to a large degree but details are now coming out. The situation has improved greatly."

Members were given an executive summary of a review carried out by external consultants KPMG.

The probe was instigated by chief executive Mike Cuff following the findings of a number of internal audit investigations which identified serious failings in the repairs service.

Halton is now improving its collection of tenant arrears, the committee was reassured.

A target reduction of £100,000 has been achieved.

Consultants KPMG said: "In our view, the real problem for the authority would appear to be the increasing level of housing revenue account debt as a result of increasing former tenants arrears and bad debt write-offs.

"Our review has identified that the level of combined debt, for the period from March 1995 to March 1999, has reduced by five per cent to £1.03 million in 1998/99.

"This, however, has masked a significant increase on former tenant debt which for the same period increased by 102 per cent (£0.167 million)."

The main factor which contributed to this overall decrease in debt, say the consultants, was in respect of the writing off of former tenant debt which has substantially increased in the last three years.

Halton Council's housing department is now undergoing a massive reform following the damning report.

The policy committee has approved radical changes, recommended by the consultants.

One of their proposals is that tenants should have more say. The consultants concluded: "The tenants' federation and other service users appear to have no confidence and trust in the housing service and senior manangement.

"Our view is that Halton Tenants' Federation is a strength for the authority. We suggest that any future solutions and strategy development should involve the federation in policy development, service and contract documentation and then in subsequently monitoring service and contract performance."

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