Three no longer at waste site after probe

TWO agency staff working at a Swansea council community waste site had their contracts terminated and a third worker resigned ahead of a disciplinary hearing, it has emerged.

The council has confirmed more details over the matter, which was first reported by the Western Mail yesterday after it came to light in an end of year report from the authority’s Corporate Fraud Team.

The case, which was first brought to the council’s attention in December, concerned employees at a community waste site allowing items such as clothing, which should have been recycled, to leave the site with a private individual for personal gain.

The council’s audit committee was told that an investigation found that as well as bags of clothing being removed by an individual, other recyclable items such as televisions and laptops where also removed.

Other breeches of protocol saw trade waste and prohibited waste being allowed to be dumped at the site and employees were found guilty of smoking on site, falsifying time keeping records and leaving the site with less than the minimum number of required employees.

A spokesman for the Corporate Fraud Team said: “The employment of two agency staff was immediately terminated and one member of staff was suspended pending a disciplinary hearing into multiple charges of gross misconduct but resigned prior to the hearing.”

He added that the action taken by the fraud team in identifying the issues could result in saving the council nearly £85,000.

The fraud team, thought to be one of only two in Wales, was established in June 2015, initially as a trial, and it has worked on several cases on its own as well as with the UK Department for Work and Pensions.

In a separate investigation, the team caught staff parking council vehicles at cafe-type establishments on Friday mornings and tucking into breakfast during work hours.

A spokesman for the team told the audit committee that quantifiable savings attributed to the so-called breakfast club investigation was in fact £822.50 and not £8,983 as previously thought.

A third probe found an employee was doing paid physical work while on sick leave with supposed mobility problems.