WIRRAL council chiefs are being asked to write-off close to £200,000 of uncollected “toxic debt”.

The backlog - created mainly from unpaid rents - has been allowed to accumulate over a number of years in the Department for Adult Social Services (DASS).

A report to next Thursday’s meeting of the authority’s ruling cabinet recommends councillors write-off a further £192,100 in outstanding contributions.

The move is part of a process of “cleansing” the alarming level of toxic debt allowed to build up in DASS.

An independent report commissioned by the ruling Labour group in 2013 in a bid to clean up the council revealed a staggering £27m of debt was allowed to build up the adult social services department.

The inquiry, carried out by independent consultant Eugene Sullivan, said that “years of neglect” had seen the debt grow to massive proportions and branded a lack of action to tackle is as “corporate failure”.

But while he said former senior officers knew of the problem and had failed to act, Mr Sullivan said councillors had not been told of the problem.

The review said only £14.8m would be collectable and recommended writing off more than £10m.

When cabinet meets on Thursday, council bosses will be told the total debt processed so far amounts to £7,007,096 and that £3,004,510.01 has so far been written off.

The report says: “The Collection and Recovery Team has already endeavoured to recover the outstanding client contribution debts without success” and adds that “if debts are not written off, they have the potential to inflate what might be thought collectable”.

It adds that progress on the historical debt will be monitored in order to establish the “optimum structure for a permanent recovery team”.

Council leader Cllr Phil Davies said: "This is part of the regular work that we are doing on all of the historic debt that the council has got on its books.

"What we are trying to do is to clear as much of the historic debt as we can but some of these cases go back to 2009. 

"We are writing-off £3m but we have collected, either in full or in part, around £2.5m so it's important to say that we are not just writing off debt, we are collecting as much as we still legally can given some of these cases go back a few years.

"It's part of the good financial management process that we have introduced following the Eugene Sullivan work of about 18 months ago."