Distress Warrants

(asked on 16th January 2015) - View Source

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what proportion of distress warrants that were passed to private debt collection agencies were returned to his Department as uncollected in each of the last three years; and what proportion of those penalties were subsequently collected by the National Crime and Enforcement Service.


Answered by
Mike Penning Portrait
Mike Penning
This question was answered on 21st January 2015

This Government takes recovery and enforcement of financial impositions very seriously and remains committed to finding new ways to ensure impositions are paid and to trace those who do not pay. This is why there has been a year on year increase in the total amount of financial penalties collected over the last three years. The amount of money collected reached an all time high of £290 million at the end of 2013/14 and collections continue to rise. In 2013/14 the total outstanding balance of financial impositions reduced by £26.7m (5%) in the year.

We do not keep data on the numbers of distress warrants returned uncollected.

It is not possible to provide figures on the proportion of those warrants returned where the impositions were subsequently collected by the National Crime and Enforcement Service due to the constraints of the current IT system.

Reticulating Splines