A senior county councillor has agreed to write-off debts worth more than £300,000.
Councillor Nick Bennett, East Sussex County Council’s lead member for resources and climate change, agreed to write-off 14 individual debts worth more than £10,000, which collectively totalled £308,272.83.
Cllr Bennett heard how, in each case, all debt recovery actions had been exhausted prior to the decision.
The Local Democracy Reporting Service understands specific details of these cases have been set out in a confidential report. The publicly-available report said officers had established either the individual and/or estate in each case as having insufficient funds to repay the debt.
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According to this report, the council has written-off debts totalling £733,863.99 in 2025/2026. This figure includes £425,591.16 worth of debts that, individually, amount to less than £10,000 and so do not require Cllr Bennett’s authorisation to be written-off.
The report notes how this total figure is £175,179.63 more than the council had written-off in 2024/2025 (which came to £558,684.36). Despite this, officers say write-offs “remain low as a percentage of total income collected”.
