MONMOUTHSHIRE county council is owed more than £4 million in unpaid debts for charges including meals on wheels, car parking fines and house repairs.

A report delivered to the authority's audit committee on Thursday showed Monmouthshire was owed £4.3 million in sundry debts at the end of October 2010.

This multi-mullion pound figure does not include the amount owed to the authority in unpaid council tax.

Monmouthshire council said that the total cumulative amount of council tax debt owed to the authority at the end of the last financial year was £3.6 million.

The report received by councillors said Monmouthshire council issues more than 15,000 invoices each year worth a total of £29 million for a range of small-scale services including meals on wheels, county farm and industrial unit rents, sewerage charges, house repairs, landscaping and the hire of community or village halls.

The report by the authority's head of finance Joy Robson showed that on October 20 this year the council was owed a total of £4.3 million for sundry debts aged between three months and two years old.

Although this is down from the £5.8 million owed in December 2009, the report highlighted car parking fines, rents on county farms and industrial unit rents as ongoing problem areas for the council's debtors team.

More than £66,000 is currently owed for car parking fines handed out before the end of the financial year 2009/2010.

£84,005 is owed to the council for county farms rent while the outstanding debt for industrial unit rents in October was £75,105, but the report noted that some invoices had only recently been issued and that the council's in-year collection rate for 2009/2010 was 93 per cent.

Council officers are currently putting together a new debt collection policy to make sure the collection process is fit for purpose.

This will be put before Cabinet for formal approval once the details are finalised.