Council spending

What Hastings Borough Council pays out, from the payments it publishes itself: every payment over £250, month by month, since January 2018. £46m left the council's accounts in the twelve months to August 2026.

The latest month in a page: the biggest payments, suppliers paid for the first time, and where it went.

£46mpaid out, Sep 25–Aug 26+7% vs the 12 months before
£21mso far in 2026/27 (5 months)+8% vs the same months a year earlier
£43mof the 12-month figure went on services and capital
£502per resident in the last 12 months

Read the figures as a floor, and as payments rather than spending. Payments under £250 are not published. Of the 12-month figure, £2.8m is money passing through rather than services bought (refunds of council tax and business rates, refunded income, and holding-account transfers). It is shown here but left out of the supplier rankings. A payment says money left; what it bought, and whether that was good value, is not something this data can tell you.

In the same 12 months the council withheld the payee's name on 370 lines worth £50.9k, mostly payments to individuals, under its own publication rules. Those lines are counted in the totals above, and we don't guess who was paid.

32 published lines carry a date after the council published them (as late as 2096), which can only be a typing slip. They count in the supplier totals, because the money did leave, but in no month on the charts, and the dataset marks them.

Month by month

Payments by the date the council made them, the latest month picked out. A spike is usually a capital payment, such as a vehicle fleet or a building, rather than a change in running costs.

0£2m£4m£6mSeptember 2023: £2.7mOctober 2023: £2.8mOct 23November 2023: £2.9mDecember 2023: £2.6mJanuary 2024: £2.8mJan 24February 2024: £3.1mMarch 2024: £3.5mApril 2024: £3.0mApr 24May 2024: £3.3mJune 2024: £3.1mJuly 2024: £3.2mJul 24August 2024: £3.1mSeptember 2024: £2.4mOctober 2024: £2.9mOct 24November 2024: £2.8mDecember 2024: £3.5mJanuary 2025: £3.3mJan 25February 2025: £4.4mMarch 2025: £4.0mApril 2025: £3.7mApr 25May 2025: £4.4mJune 2025: £3.7mJuly 2025: £3.8mJul 25August 2025: £3.8mSeptember 2025: £4.0mOctober 2025: £3.6mOct 25November 2025: £3.1mDecember 2025: £2.9mJanuary 2026: £3.0mJan 26February 2026: £3.1mMarch 2026: £4.8mApril 2026: £4.2mApr 26May 2026: £3.3mJune 2026: £6.0m£6.0mJuly 2026: £4.6mJul 26August 2026: £3.0m£3.0m
Every month as a figure
Sep 23£2.7m
Oct 23£2.8m
Nov 23£2.9m
Dec 23£2.6m
Jan 24£2.8m
Feb 24£3.1m
Mar 24£3.5m
Apr 24£3.0m
May 24£3.3m
Jun 24£3.1m
Jul 24£3.2m
Aug 24£3.1m
Sep 24£2.4m
Oct 24£2.9m
Nov 24£2.8m
Dec 24£3.5m
Jan 25£3.3m
Feb 25£4.4m
Mar 25£4.0m
Apr 25£3.7m
May 25£4.4m
Jun 25£3.7m
Jul 25£3.8m
Aug 25£3.8m
Sep 25£4.0m
Oct 25£3.6m
Nov 25£3.1m
Dec 25£2.9m
Jan 26£3.0m
Feb 26£3.1m
Mar 26£4.8m
Apr 26£4.2m
May 26£3.3m
Jun 26£6.0m
Jul 26£4.6m
Aug 26£3.0m

Year by year

By financial year (April to March). The current year is drawn lighter because it is not finished.

0£20m£40m£60m2017/18: £5.8m2017/182018/19: £20m2018/192019/20: £20m2019/202020/21: £22m2020/212021/22: £25m2021/222022/23: £33m2022/232023/24: £36m2023/242024/25: £39m2024/252025/26: £44m2025/26£44m2026/27: £21m so far (to August 2026)2026/27
Every financial year as a figure
2017/18£5.8m
2018/19£20m
2019/20£20m
2020/21£22m
2021/22£25m
2022/23£33m
2023/24£36m
2024/25£39m
2025/26£44m
2026/27£21m

What kind of money

The council's own accounting categories for the twelve months to August 2026. 'Capital' is buildings, vehicles and grants for works; 'Third Party' is services bought from other bodies; 'Collection Fund' is council tax and business-rate refunds going back out.

Where it went

The fifteen service areas that received most, as the council names them, in the same twelve months. Refunds and holding accounts are left out here.

Who was paid

The twenty suppliers paid most in the twelve months to August 2026. Names are as the council wrote them. Each name links to everything we hold on that supplier. 982 suppliers have their own page, and the rest are in the dataset. Where the council's file names a person rather than an organisation (often a sole trader or a private landlord), the row says “a named individual”: the payments are counted, and the name is in the council's own file and our dataset, but we don't rank people by name or give them a page.

Search for a supplier

The council's files

Every figure here comes from 100 monthly files published on hastings.gov.uk. The latest three:

All payment lines as a dataset
How this page is made, and what it cannot see

The council publishes a CSV of every payment over £250 each month under the Local Government Transparency Code. We download each file, read its lines, and check our total against the total printed at the bottom of the council's own file. A month whose sum disagrees is still shown, and the disagreement is recorded on the data health page.

Payments are dated by the transaction date on each line, so a file published in February can carry January's payments. Where the council linked the same file from two months, it is counted once.

The per-resident figure divides the 12-month total by the ONS mid-year population estimate for the borough (90,855, ONS mid-2025 population estimate for Hastings borough (Nomis NM_2002_1)). It gives a sense of scale; it isn't what any resident received.

Not visible here: what the council receives (council tax, business rates, grants from government, fees), its budget, or its debt. Those are in the council's statements of accounts. Appearing here says nothing about a supplier's work: a large figure usually reflects a large contract, and the decision behind it is in the council's papers.

Payments data published by Hastings Borough Council under the Local Government Transparency Code. If we get something wrong, we correct it in place with a note saying what changed, and list the correction on the about page.