MHK brands staff payments errors 'incompetent'
Overpayments of more than £470,000 made to government staff over a two-year period were "breathtakingly incompetent", an MHK has said.
About £1.1m of underpayments were also made by the payroll division of the Office of Human Resources (OHR) between January 2022 and December last year.
John Wannenburgh said the errors were "at best negligence, and at worst a dereliction of duty".
But Cabinet Office Minister Kate Lord-Brennan said while overpayments could be "unfortunate and distressing" around 98% of the 10,500 payments made monthly via the system were accurate.
She said the errors could come about due to an individual leaving employment or the reduction of their hours, incorrect information provided by a manager or department, or the incorrect processing of information by the OHR.
When there were issues, they were corrected and handled "at the earliest stage", she said.
The errors in payments were originally confirmed in a written answer to a question about the issue published in late April.
In it, Ms Lord-Brennan said salaries were processed by the OHR for government departments and statutory boards and offices, except Manx Utilities and the Post Office but any changes had to be authorised by the respective departments or managers.
She also confirmed the overpayments and underpayments could not be broken down by department "due to sensitivity concerns" surrounding connecting individuals to payments.
Specifics
During Tuesday's House of Keys sitting, Mr Wannenburgh said he had heard claims an entire government department had been overpaid for seven years, while Julie Edge MHK said she had been told some workers were paid too much after their positions were "regraded".
They had subsequently had "money taken out of wages on a monthly basis" by way of a repayment, she added.
Ms Lord-Brennan said the claims amounted to "a background inference that something may or may not be happening with no information whatsoever".
She said the matters would be of "concern" if true and more detail would be needed for the claims to be investigated.
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