Members of Hastings Borough Council's Audit Committee on Monday criticised council officers for failing to take action when money was not being banked by Estate Security Southern Limited (ESSL), following a report from external auditor PKF.

The firm was employed to collect cash from parking meters, amusement arcades, public toilets and leisure facilities before it went into liquidation in October last year, owing the council nearly £1/4million, as part of £1million debts to local authorities in total.

The meeting heard that ESSL's main role was picking up money from car parks, amounting to handling about £3million per year - on average £8,000 per day.

Although the contract stated this cash should be put into the council's account within four days, this deadline was met only 10 out of 363 times.

It also emerged at the meeting that council officers allowed the ESSL contract to continue for two months after it was due to expire.
Robert Grant, of PKF, said: "That level of detail was not widely understood by those managing the contract."

He told the meeting that ESSL was 'not being held to account'.
Councillor Richard Stevens said:"The contract wasn't adhered to and this should have set alarm bells ringing. This led to what has turned out to be a £1million robbery across all the authorities."
"The report reads as a catalogue of errors."

Cllr Paul Silverson described the report as 'unbelievable' and added: "Clearly there is a major communication problem and I want assurances that we have learned from this and it doesn't happen again."
The council's chief executive Roy Mawford acknowledged failures in council procedure but said: "We have to improve our contract management function but the reason we lost £234,000 was because somebody stole it from us."

Councillors agreed that a review of the council's large contracts was needed immediately and expressed dismay that police investigations into ESSL had been halted until an inquiry by the Official Receiver was completed.