PRIVATE investigators are to be appointed by Blackburn town hall finance chiefs to root out council tax fraudsters who have cost the authority more than £3million.

Councils all over the country have faced major problems in recent years tracing people who have left their homes without paying their bills.

In previous years, information on the movement of debtors was exchanged between the former public utilities who provided gas, electricity and water to households all over Britain.

But when the services were privatised, councils were no longer given access to billing files held by the new companies.

Data protection laws prevent the council from either providing or requesting billing information from the suppliers of these services.

As a result, Blackburn with Darwen Council tax arrears amounted to £3.1million at the end of the 1998/9 financial year, a figure which includes business rate and various other debtors.

Towards the end of 1998, the council asked a company who specialise in tracing debtors to act on behalf of the council in a limited number of cases. The work of the private investigators brought immediate results and now finance chiefs want to employ the company on a full time basis.

Staff from the company visit suspect addresses outside normal working hours and at weekends.

A report drawn up by Tom Keena, head of revenues at the council, says: "Early indications from the pilot cases would suggest that if the agency were to be employed full time, the amount payable on fees would be offset by increased income."

The council would pay the company by results, so the more debtors investigators trace the more they get paid.

A spokesman for the council refused to reveal the identity of the company involved because they are also involved in investigations centred around sensitive issues such as marriage break ups.

Members of the council's finance services committee will discuss the plan at a meeting on Thursday.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.