The amount of council tax not collected by councils has risen to over £760M, according to an analysis by public services union GMB.
The union used the latest figures and found that 408 councils in Great Britain were unable to collect a total of £760,603,129 during the last financial year (2006/07).
In the previous year, the total amounted to £741,135,110.
180 councils in England 12 in Scotland and 13 in Wales saw an increase in the amount uncollected 2006/7. Councils at the top of this list include Bradford, which collected £5M less, Birmingham which collected £4.7M less and Manchester which collected £2.6M less.
There were 174 councils in England, 9 in Wales and 19 in Scotland where the amount uncollected was lower than the previous year. At the top of the drop list was Aberdeen which collected a further £1.9M, Hackney which collected a further £1.6M and Southampton which collected a further £1.2M.
Brian Strutton, GMB National Secretary for Public Services said: ‘GMB has been criticized in recent years for publicizing the inefficiency of council tax collection but I make no apologies for that. With over £760 million uncollected council tax in the last year alone and more than half of councils getting worse at it this is a serious issue.’
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