Council owed more than £158m in unpaid invoices

West Sussex County Council (WSCC) is owed more than £158m in unpaid invoices, councillors have been told.

With a large portion of it related to adult social care, the figure was shared during a scrutiny committee meeting on Friday.

Jane Davey, cabinet member for finance and property, said it was having "a huge impact" on the council's cash flow and blamed "slow payments" from organisations like NHS Surrey and Sussex Integrated Care Board (SSICB) as part of the problem.

A spokesman for SSICB said it was in "constructive dialogue with local authority colleagues about how to resolve this going forward".

A report to the committee showed that, as of June, just over £79m of invoices – known as recharges debt – had been unpaid by such organisations.

This was more than double the amount owed in March, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

Davey said: "My understanding is there have been a number of discussions at senior level with these partners to improve the payment of our invoices.

"Those conversations need to continue because we're clearly not there yet."

She added the council had £80m worth of contributions to adult social care budgeted for in this financial year, "hence the importance of collecting these debts".

The council collects income from delivering a range of services, such as social care contributions, trade waste collection, commercial property rents and other chargeable activities delivered to businesses, partner organisations or individual residents.

In 2025-26, 85,000 invoices were raised totalling £302m. Some 69,000 invoices - amounting to £59m – related to adult social care.

SSICB's spokesperson added: "We operate pooled budgets with WSCC and as a result there are regular transactions between both organisations for the commissioning of services.

"There are occasional delays due to backing information to support the invoices and to ensure we are allocating our budget and taxpayers' money wisely.

They said a plan had been agreed "to clear the backlog on both sides in early October".

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