KCC statement about overpayments made to staff

11 July 2012

Roger Gough, KCC Cabinet Member for Business Strategy, Performance and Health Reform said:

“Clearly these errors should not have happened and we apologise to those individuals for any distress caused.

“While overpayments owed to the council account for significantly less than one percent of payments, or 1 in 1000 people, we understand why this would be of concern to the taxpayers of Kent.

“While we work hard to minimise mistakes, it is human nature that sometimes errors will happen. For example, it is inevitable that there will be changes to people’s circumstances that miss the deadline for input to the payroll system. However, most errors are corrected within a matter of days and major issues are few and far between – and we work hard to put them right by making sure we recover overpayments to staff as soon as possible. Our reclaim rate has been improving strongly in the last few years.

“However, once an employee has left the employment of KCC, it can become more difficult to recover an overpayment – particularly in the current economic climate.”

KCC employs more than 14,000 people.