Councillors overpaid £110k as local authority apologises

Oldham Council has overpaid its councillors by a total of £110,000, a newly-published report has confirmed.

The local authority conducted a review into its finances after it emerged council staff had made mistakes when calculating councillors’ allowances, which they receive in lieu of a salary.

The news of the overpayments angered Oldham locals, who demanded the councillors be made to ‘pay the money back’.

The LDRS can now confirm that overpayments range from £700 to several thousand pounds.

The figures vary from councillor to councillor due to levels of responsibility – which entitle them to bigger allowances.

For example, a Conservative councillor with no extra responsibilities owes £728, while the leader of a political opposition group told the LDRS they owed £2,226.

The figures are currently ‘provisional’, with councillors asked to repay the amount in one go or part of a monthly payment plan.

In a letter addressed to its councillors, an assistant director said they were ‘sorry’ for the mistake and that they realised they ‘had placed councillors in a difficult position’.

The error has been shored up to ‘human error’ by the council.

The LDRS understands that there was previously no process in place to check the calculations on councillor allowances had been made correctly, and had effectively relied on ‘one person telling everyone else what the figure is’.

The error saw a percentage increase of almost 12pc applied to the 2024 allowance, instead of the agreed 2.5pc.

In 2023, councillors were paid 0.5pc more than intended, and in 2022 they were paid around 0.5pc too little.

The council has confirmed it has now introduced a more robust system.

A council spokesperson said: “As part of our review of councillor allowances, we’ve carried out a detailed check of past payment records.

"During this process, we found that some councillors had been overpaid or underpaid.

“Once the full council agrees on the members’ allowances scheme, councillors have no further role in how it’s put into practice – they don’t need to make claims for their basic or special responsibility allowances.

"It is the council’s officers who are responsible for managing and applying the scheme correctly.

"We have apologised to the councillors affected.

"This mistake should not have happened, and we’ve now strengthened our processes to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

“Councillors have been given provisional figures showing what they’ve been over or underpaid.

"We will work with each affected councillor to agree fair and manageable repayment plans where needed, to make sure no one faces financial difficulty.

“To be open and transparent, the findings of our review will be shared with the Audit Committee.”

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