Diane Forsythe said:
“We are living in days of tight budgets where taxpayers are being asked to pay more. This cuts right to the heart of the issue of those who talk about “revenue raising”. The civil service must demonstrate that ratepayers are getting value for money.
These overpayments in the last three years equate to the rates bills of more than one thousand houses. It is shocking and totally unacceptable that an entire village paid their rates just so a civil servant, failing to do their job, can waste that hard earned money on overpaying someone’s pension.
The Department of Finance has failed to recover most of the overpayments it made, with only around 25% of the monetary value of repayments recovered to date. At a time when the public purse is under severe strain, and some are demand revenue raising, here we have a Department with £2m in overpayments as yet unrecovered. It is scandalous.
This demonstrates a concerning lack of oversight and accountability within the Department, particularly when public funds are at stake. Taxpayers deserve transparency and assurances that their money is being managed responsibly.
The Finance Minister must urgently address this failure, implement robust recovery measures, and ensure that such errors are not repeated. I will be seeking answers and pressing for immediate action to restore public confidence in the handling of public finances.”