Edinburgh Council employees have been overpaid salaries by a staggering £2.4 million, The Edinburgh Reporter has revealed.
At a time when proposed budget cuts are set to cause havoc on vital services, £1.6 million remains outstanding, and the situation has worsened over the last 12 months.
Over a five year period since April 2019, 1, 533 staff – a mix of local government and teaching staff – have received overpayments totalled at £2,424,000, with the number of staff overpaid and financial loss to the local authority increasing year by year.
In the period to March 2020, a total of 132 council employees received £227,000 in overpayments, but in the year of April 2023 to March 2024 that had more than trebled to £786,000 in overpayments to 611 staff.
In the last 12 months the overpayments have continued to grow – 625 staff received £788,000 more than they should have – and in that same period the council have only managed to recover £580,000 – of which £173,000 was from former councillors who have left the council.
Conservative Councillor, Phil Doggart, a member of the Finances and Resources Committee, said it appears that managerial responsibility is beyond the Council’s capability and council tax payers are paying the price.
Cllr Doggart said: “The council has had a long standing problem with overpayments to employees. Processing salaries for current and departing employees is a basic managerial function and if managers are unable to perform those basic duties, it would suggest that they are far from ready to fly.
“As is usual, getting the nuts and bolts of managerial responsibility in place seems beyond the capability of the City of Edinburgh Council. Once again the report card say ‘capable of significant improvement’. Of course, the ultimate loser in this is the council tax payer – again.”
Between April 2022 and March 2023 – the worst period of overpayment – 456 staff were overcompensated to the tune of £797,000, an average of £1,746 per person. Eighty learning and teaching staff received a total of £244,244, while 376 local government employees raked in an additional £551,373.
A Freedom of Information request revealed that just under 10% of the city council’s 19,355 payroll had received more money than provided for in their contracts. The statistics show that currently, 1,872 staff are due £1,637,624 to the cash strapped council – 293 teaching staff being overpaid £431,488 and local government employees wrongly received £1,205,875.
In June it was revealed that in a bid to plug a £110 million budget black hole, Edinburgh’s health and social care funding was to be slashed by £33 million, impacting on many of the city’s most vulnerable residents.
The overpayment is an embarrassment for recently appointed city council chief exectutive, Paul Lawrence, who said one of his priorities was to empower middle and frontline managers to “get the job done”, stating “You can only focus on the basics if front-line staff are empowered to fix them and I want to do a lot on that”.
Council leader Cammy Day told The Edinburgh Reporter: “Our payroll and salary wage payments are around £620 million annually and on average 99.5% ofour payments are accurate every month .
“However, it is important that any errors are addressed, so reducing and seeking to recover all overpayments is a key focus for us. We’ve specifically brought in measures to help us strengthen procedures and reduce overpayments, including detailed monitoring and increased training. This will be reinforced by the roll out of our new HR/Payroll system in October.”
Cllr Doggart added: “The council have not shown the appropriate level of concern about this. If I pay 99.5% of my council tax, will they be happy with that?”
