ONE million pounds of taxpayers' money has been lost forever.

It is part of £11m of Oxfordshire County Council cash which is unaccounted for.

The county council has admitted that the £1m will never be recouped, but said the other £10m was not lost.

The missing million is in the social and health care directorate, the accounts of which the district auditor is refusing to sign off.

It is the result of bad debts that have been written off because "debtors were not chased and the accountancy systems were less than perfect", admitted council leader Keith Mitchell.

Many people who owed money to the council for social or health care packages had moved away without being pursued for their contributions.

Others had been in debt to the county council for so long that they died before the money could be recovered.

Mr Mitchell said the "buck stopped with councillors" and not officers.

On Saturday, the Oxford Mail reported that the head of finance, Chris Gray, 55, had been given permission to take early retirement.

Mr Mitchell said: "For many years, officers have been asking for more staff in the financial departments, but members haven't acted on those requests.

"Members have been inclined to channel resources into the more conspicuous and high-profile frontline services, rather than into the rather boring, backroom operations, which are just as crucial. I have no difficulty owning up to that." Over many years, the members had let down both the public and county council staff, said Mr Mitchell. However, he saw no reason for himself or other members of the Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition administration to resign. It is now my task to ensure that we go forward as quickly as possible to see that we have a clean bill of health," he said.

The total amount of money the district auditor is "unhappy" about is £11m.

"There's no suggestion that the £11m is lost," said the council's director for resources John Jackson. "It's just that the district auditor says he can't rely on our figures."

Mr Jackson said that the missing £1m would be covered by the unexpected windfall of roughly the same amount in a council bank account "lost" for five years, as exclusively revealed in the Oxford Mail in March.

"No one's going to lose out," claimed Mr Jackson. "We've just been having bookkeeping problems."

"Extra resources are now being injected into financial management. We really are taking this matter seriously."

He insisted that taxpayers were not being short-changed because four out of the five directorates would be declaring an overspend in the next set of accounts.

Mr Mitchell said that each directorate of the council had been functioning as a "separate fiefdom".

He added: "Now we are developing a joined up financial operation.

"The corners that were cut didn't endanger public money. Staff simply didn't follow the manual and laid down procedures."