Dundee City Council is facing a £3.5 million black hole after it collected its lowest percentage of council tax in 10 years.
The startling figures, released by the Scottish Government, reveal that the council’s collection rate was the lowest of any in Scotland.
And the collection numbers which show that 7.3% of Dundonians avoided council tax last year are the lowest since 2003/4.
The 7.3% figure is more than double the 3.2% contingency for non-collection that the council had factored in to its revenue budget for the 2013/14 financial year.
The deficit will leave a potential black hole in council finances of more than £3.517m money that will have to be recouped in future years.
Labour leader Kevin Keenan said he was horrified, telling The Courier: “It is alarming for the council because this effectively means that there will be another percentage spending cut to make ends meet.
“It will leave a financial hole moving forward and councillors should have been told of the collection shortfall. Questions will have to be asked of Willie Sawers as to why this happened.”
Dundee City Council had budgeted on the basis of raising £47.9m from council tax, but collected just £44.3m.
Mr Sawers, depute convener of the city council’s policy and resources committee, said they are working hard to collect the money owed.
He said: “We try to encourage as many people as possible to pay by making it easy for them to do so, for example by Direct Debit or by paying online.
“These figures only show the amount collected within the last financial year but the council makes every effort to collect cumulative money owed.
“We take the issue of debt recovery seriously and have a legal duty to do everything we can to recover outstanding debt.
“Dundee’s council taxpayers expect us to take action to ensure that the public purse is not abused.”
Dundee’s collection rate was 2.5% below the Scottish average of 95.2%.
Cameron Buchan, the Scottish Conservative’s local government spokesman, slammed the national figures, saying: “This is a scandalous under-collection, and clearly some local authorities are doing far worse than others.
“Many of those who fail to pay will be repeat offenders, and perhaps it’s time for a blacklist of people who can be named and shamed.”