Council overpays staff by £1.5m in five years

Renfrewshire Council has mistakenly overpaid its staff more than £1.5million in the last five years.

Results from a Freedom of Information request show more than £710,000 remains outstanding, while the local authority has lost in excess of £43,000.

Eddie Devine, leader of the council’s Labour group, said it is “not good enough” that almost three- quarters of a million pounds was missing from the public purse.

He added: “I do realise overpayments happen.

“However, when you know what’s happening and it continues, there has to come a point where we question what we are doing wrong.”

Council chiefs said they do have an agreed recovery plan in place for most overpayments they have not yet retrieved.

Renfrewshire Council has accidentally overpaid its staff more than £1.5million over the last five years.

While just over half the money has been recovered by the local authority, there is still more than £710,000 outstanding, while more than £43,000 has been written off.

The figures were obtained by the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) via a Freedom of Information request.

Council bosses have said a lot of overpayments occur due to delayed notification of an employee’s change in circumstances.

The local authority also said it has been starting to see improvement in its recovery rate and, with the majority of overpayments which remain outstanding, there is a plan in place to retrieve the cash.

“As acknowledged by Audit

Scotland, large, complex organisations like councils will experience salary overpayments, mainly occurring from the delayed notification of an employee’s changes in circumstances,” a Renfrewshire Council spokesman said.

“Since introducing an enhanced recovery process two years ago, we are seeing indications of an improvement in the recovery rate for both 2019 and 2020, with more than half of overpayments to employees recovered in full, and for the remaining cases the majority have an agreed recovery plan in place.”

Data shows between April 2015 and March 2018, a total of £812, 255 was mistakenly handed out to employees and only £351,448 - or 43 per cent - has been recovered.

More than £439,000 from this period still needs to be retrieved, while almost £ 21,000 has been written off.

The council said it could not break down figures year-by-year for this period due to its “reporting solutions.”

Between April 2018 and March 2019, overpayments totalling £ 306,374.52 were received by employees.

The council reported £178,453 - or 58 per cent- has been recovered. More than £ 120,000 remains outstanding, while just over £7,500 has been written off.

In the last financial year, there has been an improvement in the amount of cash recovered by the council. Between April 2019 and March this year, almost £450,000 was accidentally paid out to staff, but £284,425.34 - 63 per cent - has been recovered.

However, the amount of money written off between last year and the previous year almost doubled, with £14,647.90 lost in the past 12 months.

The council is still trying to recover £ 150,504.94 of overpayments from the last financial year.

Councillor Eddie Devine, leader of the council’s Labour group, said the situation is “not really good enough”.

He explained: “I do realise overpayments happen.

“However, when you know what’s happening and it continues, there has to come a point where we question what we are doing wrong.

“There is probably always going to be a form of overpayment and we can expect some slip ups, but for it to be £1.5million in five years is not really good enough.

“There’s almost three-quarters of a million pounds missing from the public purse and that cannot be allowed to carry on.

“The council needs to be more vigilant about this and chase the money harder.”