Unpaid invoices owed to Swansea Council worth £3.5 million have been identified by in-house auditors. They checked a sample of 30 unpaid invoices which were more than 90 days old, and therefore should have been sent to to the council's legal department to chase up, but found in 26 cases the process hadn't been followed.
It was then that they identified all unpaid invoices more than 90 days old - 4,470 of them - which totalled some £3.5 million. A report before the council's governance and audit committee said many of them were several years old and approaching their expiry date. It added that contact with debtors wasn't being followed up.
The report also found that insufficient effort was being made to address invoices classed as being in dispute. The shortcomings led to the council's accounts receivable section getting a "moderate" - or limited - assurance rating. Members of the committee were told at a meeting on June 15 that efforts were being made to improve the situation. You can read more stories about Swansea here.
