How SNP town hall overpaid staff by £1.5m
AN SNP-run council has overpaid staff by £1.5million in the past five years – including handing cash to former employees.
Cash-strapped Renfrewshire Council failed to plug the leaks, caused by errors, for five years in a row.
Figures show six of the payments dating back to April 2015 exceeded £10,000 and one person received an extra £15,500.
The rising figures come despite the council tightening its overpayment recovery procedures in 2018 following a damning report into its finances by Audit Scotland’s Account Commission.
Residents in the authority have been burdened with some of the steepest council tax rises in Scotland this year.
The 4.65 per cent rise came into force only weeks after many council tax payers lost their jobs as a result of Covid19 lockdown measures.
Harry Fone, grassroots campaign manager of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: ‘Any waste of taxpayer money is infuriating, but it’s especially outrageous to lose it the same way repeatedly.
‘Overpaying staff year after year means the council both over-taxing already overburdened taxpayers and misallocating money that could go on frontline services.
‘The council must stop frittering away public money on repeated errors and start working in the best interest of Renfrewshire ratepayers.’
Officials confirmed yesterday that the authority, which is facing a £45million budget black hole over the next three years, managed to recoup half of the money after errors were spotted, but is still owed more than £710,000. Another £43,000 has been written off by the Accounts Commission.
Its report into the local authority’s finances last year found that an eighth of former workers were still paid after leaving, ‘usually due to a delay in a department notifying payroll services staff that someone had left’.
The report also warned that systems aimed at preventing money being lost through mistakes and fraud may be becoming ‘strained’. The tightening of payment processes was made as a result of the report, but statistics released yesterday to STV news show overpayments continued, with the council overpaying staff and former employees by £1.5million since April 2015.
At the time of the report, Graham Sharp, chairman of the Accounts Commission, said: ‘Councils face complex and challenging financial pressures, and rising demand for services.
‘At the same time, budgets are tightening and there is significant uncertainty from factors such as the UK’s withdrawal from the EU.’
A Renfrewshire Council spokesman said: ‘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.
‘Since introducing enhanced recovery processes 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.’
‘Frittering away public money’