INVERCLYDE Council has overpaid its staff by more than £150,000 over the last five years, according to new figures.
The local authority overpaid its staff by £170,537.89 between the 2016/17 and 2020/21 tax years, with the latest year's total being the highest across the period at £50,046.41.
Data released to the Telegraph through a freedom of information request showed that the council has logged more than £20,000 in overpayments to its employees every year since 2016/17.
In 2016/17 and 2017/18 the amounts surpassed £30,000, with council staff being overpaid £31,880.59 and £35,241.98 respectively.
The figure fell in the two following years, which recorded totals of £29,423.29 and £23,945.62, before sky-rocketing in 2020/21.
Fortunately, the council managed to recover all of the overpaid cash and did not have to write off any of the money.
When asked how the overpayments had occurred, an Inverclyde Council spokesperson said: “Overpayments can occur for a variety of reasons, especially in an organisation that employs close to 4,000 people.
"The most common reason is late notification to payroll of employee terminations and reductions in hours.
“All overpayments were recovered.”
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