A council finance chief said Vale of Glamorgan Council is chasing money owed by hundreds of debtors that hasn't been paid for more than a year.

Vale of Glamorgan Council's head of finance, Matt Bowmer, spoke with members of the local authority's governance and audit committee at a meeting on Monday, May 20, about areas for improvement in debt recovery raised by auditors.

A report on the council's progress in carrying out the recommended improvements states that final notice letters have been sent out to those with debts over 12 months old.

Mr Bowmer said the council is now in the process of making sure all of the debts are still valid before sending invoices on to recovery agency Marston for further action.

He later said: "We need to finish going through those 700 or so invoices over 12 months, send them to the collection agency and then review whether we need legal input." 

Mr Bowmer added that there is money starting to come in from the process of sending out final reminders.

Members of the governance and audit committee were told about a number of concerns and recommended improvements relating to council departments in April 2024. These included concerns about leisure centre contract and performance monitoring, food stock control at care homes and debt monitoring.

One of the original recommendations made to the council, laid out in the local authority's progress report, is that "regular debt recovery action of all outstanding debts is to be carried out with an escalation to the debt collection agencies and or the high court enforcement team where appropriate".

The report also states that a meeting with Marston about moving forward with debt recovery had to be moved a couple of times for various reasons.

This eventually took place on April 4 and the first batch of debts over 12 months old were sent a final notice on April 23 with a view to the first set of cases being passed to Marston later in May.

The report goes on to say: "Unfortunately it appears that these notices took well over a week to land with customers and we are still dealing with the contact from this, however any remaining cases will be progressed once all of the queries have been resolved."

Another update on debt recovery will be provided to the governance and audit committee in six months.