THE chance discovery of a "missing" council bank account containing £2.5 million smacks of incompetence according to the leader of the opposition on Swindon Council.

The surprise discovery of the money came after the account, one of a number set up specifically to store funds for the authority's housing department, was revealed to members at the authority's Full Council meeting.

But Kevin Small (Lab, Western) said that the revelation that a housing department account had been left standing idle since the mid-1980s was unacceptable.

Coun Small said: "This smacks of incompetence and it was just a pure fluke that it was found.

"If I knew the money was sitting around then I would have used it when I was leader of the council to fund improvements to our council house stock, but it was simply just forgotten about.

"It is not the job of councillors to look after the day-to-day finances of the council when I ask officers about something I expect them to produce it."

A number of accounts were set up during the last decade and beyond, and it appears that this one had simply escaped the attention of both officers in the housing department and councillors.

The Conservative administration claims the discovery was only made after the authority's new Star Chamber an informal committee set up for lead members to quiz senior council officers about their departments trawled through the council's housing accounts.

The money, which one councillor has compared to finding an old sock at the bottom of a drawer, will now be used to fund improvements, repairs and alterations to thousands of council accommodations across the borough.

Housing Revenue Account money is ring-fenced, which means that it can only be used for housing purposes, and as such could not have been used to finance other departments, such as education and social services, which have suffered from a dearth of funding over the past couple of years.

Coun David Renard (Con, Haydon Wick) said: "This is great news for the council's tenants as it means that we can bring forward the Housing Improvement Programme which will enable Swindon to achieve the Govern-ment's Decent Homes Standard even further ahead of the deadline than previously expected.

"The situation demonstrates how the Conservative administration is working positively with the council's officers and as a result residents can see that it is bringing benefits to all sectors of the town."

The authority has around 12,000 council houses across the borough, but some 200 still do not have central heating.

Some of the money will now be used to install central heating along with other modifications, like replacing boilers, rewiring and environmental improvements.

Council leader Mike Bawden (Con, Old Town and Lawns) said: "This money was found in the bottom left-hand drawer of the council's cupboard and will come in extremely handy for repairs and other general maintenance work on council properties."