Region's £40m in unpaid fines

The West Midlands has more uncollected court fines than anywhere else in the country, apart from London.

And the figure is rising despite a high-profile government campaign to improve performance.

The Ministry of Justice revealed that £486 million in fines was outstanding at the end of March in England and Wales – a £12million increase on the previous year. London had £111 million outstanding. The second highest figure was in the West Midlands, with £40 million.

Next came Greater Manchester (£27m), Merseyside (£24m) and Thames Valley (£22m). The lowest amount owed was in Suffolk, with £2.2million outstanding.

Ministers have mounted a series of initiatives to increase the amount of money taken from criminals who have been fined.

But it has been claimed that they have not gone far enough. In January a committee of MPs said existing arrangements were "ridiculous" and urged ministers to bring in a range of reforms.

The public accounts committee (PAC) said millions of pounds in fines are not collected each year. Its report called for "strenuous steps" to improve the collection rate, and raised the prospect of charging interest on unpaid fines or offering discounts to quick payers.

Courts in England and Wales issued fines amounting to £350 million in 2004-05 but the Ministry of Justice does not know how many offenders pay their fines, the committee found.

Research showed that one in 20 paid their fine on the day of sentencing, and half paid within six months. The report said that in 2004-05, £69 million of fines – almost a fifth of the annual total by value – were cancelled at a cost of £28 million.

The Government says there has been a "clear increase" in the cash collected. The amount rose from £213m in 2003-04 to £234m in 2005-06, a spokesman said at the time of the PAC report.