Brighton and Hove council workers overpaid £1m

Council staff in Brighton and Hove have been overpaid more than £1 million over three years.

More than 700 staff have been invoiced by Brighton and Hove City Council to recover the cash.

But more than £215,000 was still owed when the council answered a freedom of information (FoI) request about the overpayments earlier this year. The amount recovered totalled £837,000.

The information was shared with thousands of people this afternoon (Monday 5 May) when it was tweeted by Greg Hadfield, of the Brighton and Hove Independent free weekly newspaper.

Oh look! @BrightonHoveCC overpaid 724 staff by £1,052,793.95, between 2010 and 2013; £215,017.20 still outstanding: http://t.co/fTrGcDmxkB.

— Greg Hadfield (@GregHadfield) May 5, 2014

The total overpaid rose from almost £320,000 in 2010-11 to more than £400,000 in 2012-13.

The council said that it was still owed more than £5,800 from the 2010-11 financial year, £64,000 from almost £330,000 overpaid in 2011-12 and almost £145,000 from 2012-13.

The average overpayment was £2,155.38 in 2010-11, £1,134.78 in 2011-12 and £1,414.09 in 2012-13. The biggest single overpayment was £38,490.00.

The information is detailed on the council’s website in response to an FoI request.

The FoI request and the council’s response have also been published on the website What Do They Know.