Slough Borough Council is owed just shy of £40m in uncollected money, a freedom of information request has revealed.

The figures show that over £12.5m is owed to the council for housing benefit overpayments, more than £8m worth of ‘sundry debts’ are still owed and over 11,000 parking tickets remain uncollected, adding up to over a million pounds.

Current tenant arrears add up to over a million pounds, with 6,037 individual payments still unclaimed, while 1,337 payments from former tenants, totalling over £1.2m, are also contributing to the overall figure.

A further £12.8m remains outstanding for council tax, as well as £2.8m worth of outstanding business rates, but the council pointed out that this currently does not count as debt as some of this will be recouped by people who pay these fees in instalments.

The figures come less than a month after Slough Borough Council claimed it was “using profits from our development vehicle (Slough Urban Renewal) to subsidise our budget for the past two years” when a number of councillors added their names to a national petition, suggesting that their spending model may cease to be sustainable under increased pressure from government cuts.

However, a spokesman from the council has labeled the figure as ‘similar to other local authorities’ and said that it is looking at ways in which it can reduce the amount of uncollected debts.

The council spokesman said: “Slough Borough Council’s current level of unclaimed debt is similar to that of other local authorities and we do all within our legal power to collect any monies owed to us.

“Only when it costs the council more to pursue the debt than the sum of the debt itself would we ultimately cease trying to recover it.

“We also review, on regular occasions, any debts previously deemed to be ‘written-off’ to assess whether a change of circumstances would allow us to now pursue the debt.”