Council misses out on £70k as Aberdeen drivers fail to update records

Aberdeen City Council has missed out on nearly £70,000 because drivers have failed to keep their records updated.

Last week we revealed local authority chiefs had written off nearly £2 million of debt as “unrecoverable”.

As well as rent arrears, failure to pay council tax and housing benefit overpayments, the amount also included penalty charge notices for parking and driving in bus lanes.

In the vast majority of cases, the debt was written off because council staff had been unable to trace the owner of the vehicle.

Aberdeen drivers ‘untraceable’

Now it has emerged the authority has lost out on tens of thousands of pounds because the DVLA does not hold up-to-date information.

At a meeting of the city growth and resources committee on Wednesday, councillors heard officials have also been unable to track down the drivers of foreign-registered vehicles.

“It seems a very high number considering everyone has registration plates,” SNP group leader Alex Nicoll said.

“I do accept we have foreign vehicles we can’t trace but it does seem, on the face of it, to be quite high.”

In response to questioning from Mr Nicoll, council officers confirmed the “majority” of cases were the result of the DVLA not having up-to-date information.

A total of 670 bus lane fines and 504 penalty charge notices were written off by the council in 2020/21.

Of those, 481 parking fines and 618 bus lane fines were due to the drivers being untraceable.

The total amount written off by the local authority because of the issue was £68,877.

Nearly £2 million ‘unrecoverable’

The sum is part of a wider £1,838,197.10, built up over several years, which council finance chiefs decided it was not worth pursuing.

However, the local authority said the loss of the cash will not have an impact on its financial performance as allowances are made for money that cannot be recovered.

There are a number of reasons a debt could be considered unrecoverable and written off by the council.

The person who owes the money may have passed away, they may have been declared bankrupt or they may not have any assets in order to reclaim the debt.

However, if the cash does become recoverable in the future, it is able to restart action so the money can be paid.