Kirklees Council faces writing-off almost £9m of money owed to it.

Unpaid council tax, business rates and housing and rental payments topped £8.9m and for accounting purposes the authority has to technically write off the cash from its accounts.

The figure is higher than last year when £7.4m was owed.

However, the authority says money people owe in unpaid council tax, business rates and housing payments can still be chased by their collection teams.

Kirklees, in the report, says: “The figures for council tax and business rates demonstrate how important it is for everyone to pay their share of the council tax to help fund essential council services.

“Unfortunately, there will always be a minority of households who do not pay their council tax and business rate bills on time.”

Kirklees says they issue reminders, summonses and obtain liability orders through magistrates court that allow the council to recover debts through using the bailiffs, attachment to earnings or benefits, issuing committal proceedings, instigating insolvency proceedings, or putting charging orders on the properties.

But the authority admits it has to be realistic about which debts are collectable – around £1.2m was written off on compassionate grounds. A further £1m is owed by people they’ve been unable to trace.

The council has 181,300 properties liable for council tax – 63% pay by direct debit which gives Kirklees a better recovery rate. There are 14,900 properties for business rates.

Collection rates have increased locally, 95.2% of the £165m was collected in 2014/15 up from 93.5% in 2013/14.

While a significant sum remains unpaid, Kirklees’ collection rate was far better than many others in the north of England.

Salford in Greater Manchester had a collection rate of just 91.6% – the worst in the country – and Manchester City Council’s collection rate of 91.8% left it with a shortfall of £12.3m.

The best collection rates were in the south of England, with Wokingham and Chiltern collecting a staggering 99.3%.

Across England as a whole, some £740.8m of council tax due for 2014/15 remained uncollected by the end of March.