MORE than £4m owed to Teesside taxpayers has been written-off in unrecoverable debt for council tax and housing benefit and other sundry debts since 2012, The Northern Echo can reveal.

That figure is likely to be far higher by the end of the financial year but only represents a small fraction of the money which is collected by the area’s four councils in council tax, housing benefits overpayments and other, sundry debts.

However the Tax-payers’ Alliance has flagged up unpaid debts as a problem, arguing those who don’t pay their debts put up taxes for everyone else.

Hartlepool Borough Council has the best record with just about £400,000 of debt written off between April 2012 and January of this year.

Middlesbrough has written off more than £1,370,000 in council tax and housing benefit overpayments over three years and Stockton council, which has the largest population, has written off about £1,300,000.

Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council did not provide comprehensive figures for the last three years, but a briefing note for the cabinet shows that this financial year the council is proposing to write-off £74,069 in council tax and £117,557 in overpaid housing benefit. However the authority is this year also proposing to write-off pre-2005 debts, including £128,229 in unpaid business rates and £965,070 in unrecovered pre-2005 council tax.

The figures for the three councils who provided statistics for the last three years were:

Stockton Borough Council: Written off council tax benefits overpayments were £24,674 in 2014/13, £34,775 in 2013/14 and £19,099 from April 2014 to January this year. Written off housing benefit overpayments were £288,951 in 2012/13, £165,515 in 2013/14 and £137,638 from April 2014 to January this year. Written off council tax in 2012/13, including the previous year’s amount, was £173,359, in 2013/14 it was £186,065 and from April 2014 to January this year £331,267.

Middlesbrough Borough Borough Council: Written off council tax payments were £39,000 in 201/13; £280,000 in 2013/14 and £682,000 from April 2014 to April this year. Written off housing benefit overpayments was £123,000 in 2012/13, £170,000 in 2013/14 and £71,000 from April 2014 to January this year.

Hartlepool Borough Council: Written off housing benefit overpayments for 2012/13 were £54,930 and £43,298 in 2013/14 and £65,351 from April 2014 to January this year. Sundry debt write-offs for 2012/13 were £59,104 and 2013/14 totalled £50,328 and £21,834 from April 2014 to January this year. Council Tax write-offs for 2012/13 were £114,131 and £121,718 in 2013/14 and £37,515 from April 214 to December 31, 2014.

A spokesman for Stockton Borough Council said: “Amounts written off as irrecoverable are a very small percentage of total amounts collected.”