TOWN Hall bosses today pledged to crackdown on council tax dodgers after it was revealed £1.9million of last year's cash has still to be collected.

Despite making improvements, nearly seven per cent of the council tax was not collected by Blackburn with Darwen Council on time.

As a result, the authority has been ranked the third worst collector in Lancashire and in the bottom 10 of the 46 unitary authorities across the country.

Opposition councillors today urged the ruling Labour group on Blackburn with Darwen Council to get their act together -- saying that honest tax payers are ending up paying twice. Last year councillors agreed to write off around £1million as a lost cause, one of the highest figures in the North West and including £103,000 in council tax dating back to 1998.

But executive member for resources Gail Barton, vowed the money would be rounded up this time.

She said the council faced problems because high levels of deprivation meant people could not afford to pay or were hard to track down because they moved around regularly in cheap housing.

Coun Barton said: "The council has improved its rate of council tax collection and to date has collected 93.1 per cent or £26.7million of all outstanding council tax for the last financial year.

"The tables don't compare like with like.

"In the national table, we are about mid-way but we are not happy with that."

Coun Barton added: "We try to sit down with people and work out a payment structure.

"In other cases, we use bailiffs and agencies to get the money or find people and this will be increased. "

The council already uses private detectives for other areas of work and has just installed a new computer system to help with its workload

Coun Barton added: "We don't just close the book at the end of the financial year. We will get the money and it will be used to help everyone."

The collection figure has risen 0.3 per cent on the previous year.

Last year, Conservative councillors slammed the Labour group for writing off the debt and urged them to 'name and shame' people who didn't pay.

Last night, shadow spokesman for resources, Coun Mike Lee, said: "The honest tax payer is paying twice because of the cost of chasing the people who don't pay. The council is too slow at chasing the debt."

In Lancashire, only Pendle, Preston and Rossendale performed worse than Blackburn with Darwen.

Rossendale, with just 91 per cent of rates collected, has been asked by the Government to explain its actions.

Coun Barton added the council would also be pursuing the uncollected national business rates -- 96.1 per cent was collected -- making Blackburn the 39th placed town out of 46 unitary authorities.

In Ribble Valley is the third best collector in the country, with 99.3 per cent collection.

Hyndburn's collection rate slipped to 93.2 per cent.