Brighton and Hove City Council overpaid at least £164,000 in housing benefit in the past financial year, councillors were told this afternoon (Tuesday 10 January).
This was about 0.1 per cent of the £163 million in housing benefit claims handled by the council in 2015-16.
And the money may be withheld by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), according to Paul King, from auditors Ernst and Young.
This was likely to leave the council out of pocket although officials were often able to try to reclaim overpayments from those receiving the benefits.
The £164,000 in overpayments compared with a figure of about £124,000 in the previous year – and Mr King said that the council was far from the worst performer in this area.
He said that when auditors found errors they then checked more claims and this led to more errors being found. But there was no pattern, Mr King said.
Nigel Manvell, the council’s assistant director of finance and procurement, told the Audit and Standards Committee that he was pleased that there were no signs of systematic fraud.
But as a result of the errors the auditor issued issued a qualification letter, the meeting at Hove Town Hall was told.
Councillors Ollie Sykes and Tom Druitt, both Greens, asked about underpayments. They were told that these were not included in the qualification letter because the DWP was more interested in clawing back overpayments.
Diane Bushell, an independent member of the Audit and Standards Committee, urged the council to learn lessons from the best-performing councils.
No signs of systematic fraud just pure incompétence.
Wow! Only 0.1% overpayment, that is pretty good!