Tom Watson – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Watson on 2014-07-15.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what the value is of duplicate supplier payments identified by his Department since 2010; and what proportion of such payments have since been recovered in each of the last two financial years.

Kris Hopkins

In my Department’s publication “50 ways to save”, we asserted that councils could save money by conducting audits of potential duplicate payments and reforming accounts payable processes. This was based on research by Experian of both local and central government bodies.

In the answer by my hon. Friend, the Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis) of 5 November 2013, Official Report, Column 145W, it was noted how our Department has itself undertaken such best practice, and had duly recovered £61,301 of taxpayers’ money from twenty duplicate payments for the period May 2010 to October 2013, apart from a sum of £257 which was not recoverable from three payments. A further £32,000 was recovered from historic duplicate payments made between 2006 and 2009. I also would note there were £7,018 of duplicate payments from January to April 2010.

Since that answer, our ongoing internal processes have identified a further £7,492 from four transactions from November 2013 to March 2014, all of which have been recovered thanks to our strengthened checks.

We have previously commissioned business analytics and information services firm, PRGX, to carry out a full spend-recovery audit on our accounts payable system and help us further improve and reform administrative practices. PRGX’s audit report has subsequently noted that 99.999% of the transaction value reviewed was processed correctly, and that: "DCLG have been effective in limiting supplier overpayments. The low rate of errors identified by the audit and statement request process indicates the current processes and controls continue to limit supplier overpayments."

This sizeable saving endorses what we said in “50 ways to save”: regularly checking for duplicate payments and putting systematic checks in place is a common-sense way of saving taxpayers’ money in both local and central government.