MORE than four million pounds worth of council tax went uncollected by local councils during the last financial year, it has been revealed.

The worst collector locally was Bournemouth Borough Council, which in April 2005 was owed more than two and a quarter million pounds.

The council has since reduced this to just over £1.63 million but its performance is still far worse than the Borough of Poole, which in April was owed £902,000.

Richard Ascough, regional secretary of the GMB, which produced the league table, said if councils were more vigorous in collecting council tax, they could improve public services or hold down council tax rises.

But Dave Evans, senior revenue officer at Bournemouth, said they already went to great lengths to collect outstanding council tax.

"The recovery team issued 8,500 liability orders in court during 2004/05 to recover these outstanding taxes," he said.

"These liability orders can result in an attachment of earnings being issued, taking the outstanding amounts out of wages, bailiffs or a prison sentence."

Alan Fletcher, revenues manager, Borough of Poole, said the £902,000 uncollected represented just 1.58 per cent of the overall collectable amount.

"However work continues by the revenues team to collect that money in arrears and the outstanding figure for the year is now around £500,000," he said.

"The council continues to collect money owed and ultimately we believe the amount not collected will eventually represent less than 0.5 per cent of the overall sum."

A total of £443,000 was uncollected in North Dorset by April and £366,000 was uncollected from residents in East Dorset.

Peter Hyde, communications officer for East Dorset District Council, said the authority had performed well in collecting council tax over the last year and the uncollected amount was now down to around £55,000.

The GMB union calculates that Purbeck District Council failed to collect £229,000 during 2004/05 but Phil McStraw, head of revenues and social support, said the net arrears figure was £124,000.

Christchurch council collected 98.8 per cent of council taxes last year amounting to more than £22 million with some £261,000 unpaid. Town hall spokesman Allan Wood said the unpaid amounts were pursued in subsequent years.

And New Forest District Council had a 98.6 per cent council tax collection rate in 2004/5 and is on target to match that in the current year.

Senior revenues officer Julia Downton said a "huge recovery programme" involving banks, employers, bailiffs and the courts was employed to pursue defaulters and outstanding amounts were only written off as a last resort.

First published: November 2, 2005