Highland Council attempts to recover £620,000 overpaid to staff

Highland Council is attempting to claw back over £600,000 that has been overpaid to staff.

Just under half of all overpayments are currently being recovered.

The council says they have implemented a number of measures to combat overpayments, including sending a newsletter, poster, and video to staff.

Officer efforts have seen overpayments drop by £50k in the last year, but the overall total has grown to £624k, an increase on previous figures.

What are the latest figures?

The council is still seeking to reclaim £624,464 from staff this year.

This is £10,372 more than the previous total published in November, which stood at £614,092.

Council officers say this increase is due to the “comprehensive work” in tracking the full scale of the overpayments made.

This work uncovered that 66% of all the overpayments made to staff have been due to “late notification of changes to the payroll.”

A further 11% was due to “incorrect information being provided,” with the remaining 23% unclear.

Back in April last year, there was a change in the financial system the council uses, which contributed to the level of overpayments.

Of the current overpayments being recovered, 68% are with current council employees, and the remaining 32% are ex-employees.

What is the council doing about it?

The council has implemented a number of changes to its internal systems to try and catch any overpayments.

These include a monthly newsletter sent to managers reminding them to send “timely data to payroll.”

A poster and video have been sent to staff, encouraging them to check their payslips.

A number of other changes within the council’s HR department have been overseen by senior officers, and the hope is that this will continue to lower overpayments.

The council says this work has resulted in just £14.6k in overpayments in April this year, compared to £65.8k in April of last year.

Officials continue to ‘fully recover all overpayment sums’

Council officers have made it clear that the payment system still has an accuracy rate of 99.86%.

Speaking during the last overpayments discussion, council officers said they were seeking to “fully recover all overpayment sums.”

Affected council staff were assured by officers at the time that they would be given the option of a repayment plan before any salary deductions would be made.

They added: “In the cases of former employees, failure to pay will go through the standard debt recovery process… and so will ultimately result in court action.”

Councillors at the time were sympathetic with affected staff but called on officers to continue recovering any overpayments.

The matter will be discussed at a committee next week.