Foreign workers got council jobs without proper paperwork
Foreign staff at Wolverhampton City Council were allowed to take jobs without adequate proof of their right to work in the UK, a damning report reveals today.
Foreign staff at Wolverhampton City Council were allowed to take jobs without adequate proof of their right to work in the UK, a damning report reveals today.
And council workers applying for a share of £33m of equal pay compensation were able to use TV licences as proof of identification.
A leaked audit report about the compensation revealed how a number of foreign members of staff did not have sufficient documentation when they were recruited and 19 did not have it when applying for equality backpay.
The report, dated March 2008 but not seen by any councillor until this week, shows that concerns were raised over the £33m back pay payout while Labour was in control of the council.
But both Tory and Labour bosses today said they had not been made aware of the concerns raised at the time.
Two workers from overseas were suspended pending an inquiry when the practice was exposed just before they were handed a share of £15,000 in back pay. One was later sacked for working illegally.
Hundreds of other staff could also have been overpaid compensation running to more than £750,000, with the true scale still unknown. One worker received £14,300 more than they should have.
An investigation by the now Conservative-led council has been ordered.
Councillor Wendy Thompson, finance chief for the Conservatives, said: "We want to get to the bottom of what happened and make sure that lessons are learned by everyone involved. It was an enormous amount of money."
A secret report leaked to the Express & Star reveals bosses raised concerns two years ago that their checks on staff were insufficient.
The £33m in back pay left the council's accounts between January and March 2008, when Labour was in charge of the council. Concerns have now been raised about how the payout was made, including it not forming its own item for approval on any council agenda.
In the "strictly confidential" report, written by council senior auditor Ian Cotterill, it was said that some staff should not have been eligible for compensation.
The 41-page audit, which has not emerged publicly since it was written two years ago, concerned the signing of Cot3 agreements drawn up by the council, which are contracts for payment that avoid the need to go to a tribunal.
Mr Cotterill's report reads: "While examining the Cot3 agreement files, the acceptance of a TV licence as a form of documentation was observed on more than one occasion and a letter from the council in one case, suggesting that inadequate guidance had been given to staff operating the checking process."
Labour leader Councillor Roger Lawrence said his councillors were not made aware of the audit or the concerns it raised, pointing out that the administration of the payment was handled by council officers. But today he said he had made enquiries and was satisfied that appropriate action had been taken following the audit.
