This club provides a series of detailed debt collection performance benchmarks:

• Debtor days
• Value of debt collected
• Outstanding debts
• Amounts written off - the last three all compared in relation to the annual debit

For this purpose, separate comparisons are provided for sundry and periodic debts, and for a number of more specific types of debt such as charges for residential care and benefit overpayments. The cost benchmark here is as creditors, the cost per invoice, and the core function is defined on similar lines to creditors, though starting after data is input.

Collection and enforcement is clearly part of the core debtors function, and has to be included whether undertaken centrally, locally or externally. We also look at the cost per £1,000 of debt raised, as a measure of the proportion of income taken up by the collection process.