Request
Please provide the list of categories or headings under which your department records financial losses, write-offs, and special payments.
For each category, please provide the total monetary value recorded for the last three completed financial years.
To confirm, all I require is the category name that your department uses and the total amount recorded under that category. These figures should already be a matter of record within your existing financial reporting processes and therefore should not require any additional analysis or reclassification.
Categories may include, but are not limited to: fraud, overpayments, unrecoverable debts, theft, misappropriation, losses due to error or negligence, contract failures, procurement disputes or terminated contracts, failed or abandoned IT/digital projects, compensation payments, ex-gratia payments, and payments made under settlement agreements (including those containing confidentiality clauses or non-disclosure provisions).
If any category or heading used to record losses has changed name, been merged, split, or reclassified during the three-year period, please identify the change.
For clarity, an example of the type of output requested for each category and for each financial year would be totals such as:
- £50m recorded under fraud
- £120m recorded under overpayments
- £300m recorded under unrecoverable debts
- £40m recorded under settlement agreements
- £200m recorded under failed IT projects
- £80m recorded under procurement disputes
These examples are illustrative only. Please provide the categories actually used by your department and the totals recorded under each for each of the last three years.
Response
Most of the information requested below is available on the Council’s Statement of accounts published on DDC website at Accounts and Budgets, specifically
- Financial losses - please refer to our Core statements on the statement of accounts. We also published the financial status on General Fund in Narrative report and separate session on Collection fund and HRA
- Bad debts/Write off - please refer to statement on debtors (e.g. Note 28 for year 25/26), split by Council Tax, NDR, General debtors, Housing benefits and HRA (these debts are unrecoverable))
- Payments related to employee compensation, ex-gratia - please refer statement note on Officers' Remuneration (e.g. Note 24 for year 25/26)
- There's also a statement note on contingent liabilities (e.g. Note 42 for year 25/26)
From other categories you mentioned below, it would have been reported separately on the financial statements, Annual Governance statement or meeting minutes which are available on our website at Councillors and Elections. We can confirm there's no fraud, misappropriation, losses due to error or negligence, contract failures, procurement disputes or terminated contracts, failed or abandoned IT/digital projects in the past three years.
In respect of write offs relating to rents, a report is published online each year titled "Annual Write off report for housing services". These reports can be found via the following links:
https://moderngov.dover.gov.uk/documents/s67833/Annual%20Write%20Off%20Report%20for%20Housing%20Services%202025-26.pdf
https://moderngov.dover.gov.uk/documents/s63355/DDC%20Annual%20Debt%20Write%20Off%20Report%202024-25%20Housing%20Services.pdf
https://moderngov.dover.gov.uk/documents/s57209/DDC%20Annual%20Debt%20Write%20Off%20Report%202023%202024%20Housing%20Services.pdf
The most recent write-off report in respect of parking can be found here: Cabinet Report Template no instructions (Updated Jan 2020) and the most recent report in respect of other debts written off can be found here: Annual Write Off Report for PartnershipOne 2025-26.pdf.
You can also refer to Annex 3 of Medium Term Financial Plan (MTFP) which breakdown income and cost by department (e.g. parks, car park, special fees and payment).
I can confirm that there are no fraud-related losses identified for each of the last three financial years.