Manchester's 7,000 Case Benefits Backlog

12.00.00am UTC (GMT +0000) Thu 4th Jan 2007

In a document leaked to Manchester Lib Dem Leader Simon Ashley, Labour's finance chief Sue Murphy has admitted that there is a "backlog (documents over 7 days) of around 7,000 pieces of correspondence", and that "There has been some delay in debt recovery with the switchover to the new (computer) system."

This comes just a day after it was revealed that Manchester City Council is issuing 60,000 summons for Council Tax non-payment this year.

Councillor Simon Ashley said:

"Thousands of Manchester Residents are getting court summons through no fault of their own. Everyone has an obligation to pay their Council Tax. However, if there is a backlog on the Council's side of 7,000 legitimate enquiries, we should sort these out before threatening court action."

Ends......