MORE than £2.5 million in council tax was uncollected in York in the past financial year, but city chiefs have still welcomed a near £500,000 improvement.

New figures from the GMB union have revealed that a total of £2,605,000 went uncollected in 2005 to 2006, compared with £3,073,000 the year before.

The statistics show that City of York Council is continuing to improve its collection rates, with an extra £468,000 picked up.

The year before, collection rates improved by £700,000 - meaning an extra £1 million has found its way into council coffers over the past two years.

Nationally, a total of £739 million was uncollected in 2005/2006, with £56.8 million of that in Yorkshire and Humberside councils.

Aside from York, £715,000 was uncollected by Selby District Council (an improvement of £250,000 on the previous year), but in Ryedale, East Riding of Yorkshire and Hambleton collection rates all got worse.

A total of £2.67 million was uncollected in East Riding (an increase of £318,000), £572,000 was uncollected in Hambleton, up from £263,000 the previous year, and £285,000 was left uncollected in Ryedale - an increase of £2,000.

The union called on the Labour party conference to support changes in the law to help councils collect all the money owed to them to improve services.

Colin Smith, GMB senior organiser, said: "Nationally, £739 million in council tax was not collected last year.

"GMB wants to see councils collecting all the money they are owed for council tax.

"People on low incomes get support to pay their council tax. This GMB analysis shows that many councils did better but there is still some way to go.

"In particular, GMB wants to see changes in the law and in the Inland Revenue rules to give councils powers to enable landlords to ensure that their tenants pay their council tax.

"GMB is not prepared to see people cheating the system to the detriment of our members and at the expense of the local tax payer.

"If this money had been collected by the councils it could have been used to improve services or hold down the level of the council tax."

Council leader Steve Galloway said: "I am pleased with the progress that is being made by council officials in collecting more of our annual council tax income during the year that it is due.

"This is the second year in a row that there has been a significant improvement, but I personally won't be satisfied until we have collection rates much closer to 100 per cent."