Oldham responds to ‘administrative error’ that saw councillors overpaid for years

An ‘administrative error’ at a Greater Manchester council has left locals in Oldham fuming. 

The payroll mistake saw Oldham councillors overpaid for the last three years. Some of the 60 councillors have been receiving more than their annual allowance each year – a detail only noticed after a recent audit review. 

While the exact figure of how much was overpaid is yet to be determined, council sources have claimed it is a relatively small amount. Some have guessed it totals no more than £2,000 across the three years. 

But the council has been slammed for its ‘ineptitude’ by some sitting councillors, with one calling the situation a ‘clear c***-up’. 
And Oldham residents have demanded the elected representatives ‘pay back the money’. 

“It doesn’t matter if it’s only a small amount, they need to pay it back,” Sarah, in her late forties, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service while on her lunch break in Oldham town centre. “It’s the principle of it. If HMRC overpay my tax rebate, I’m expected to send it back, or I get a fine.”

Sarah paused to speak to the LDRS in a short interval between the sporadic rain showers pelting Oldham’s grey-tinged high street. 

She went on: “It wouldn’t surprise me if they try to brush it under the carpet. If it was an administrative error, then fair enough, it wasn’t their fault – but that might mean they don’t feel they have the responsibility to send it back. 

“It’s not fair towards normal, working class people like us. We wouldn’t get away with that.”

And Sarah wasn’t the only one who felt the imbalance. 

“They should pay it back,” Janet Worral, 66, demanded. “That’s the right thing to do.” 

The Oldham grandma and carer didn’t hold a high opinion of politicians in general, claiming ‘they’re all absolutely useless and all they seem to do is argue’. And errors like this – and how they are dealt with by governmental bodies – only seemed to contribute further to the deepening mistrust of institutions. 

“I don’t even know who my local councillors are, or what they do,” she added. “All they seem to do is raise council tax and not collect my bins enough.” 

The question seemed to be on everybody’s lips whom the LDRS spoke to: Will the councillors be made to pay the money back? 

So far, there doesn’t seem a clear answer to that question. A spokesperson suggested that work was currently still underway to establish the financial implication of the error. 

But an Oldham teacher, who was out shopping for school supplies with her daughter ‘before the rush’, thought it was ‘unlikely’. 

The woman, who didn’t wish to be named, said: “It’s unfair. I know families who’ve been overpaid for things like Universal Credit without realising – and they’ve had to pay it back the next month, leaving them really struggling. But I’ll be surprised if they pay it back. Why would they?” 

And Tony Brunton, a 73-year-old pensioner who hails from Newcastle and has lived in Oldham for seven years thought there was a bigger problem at hand. 

“I’d heard about the overpayment,” he said. “And I’ve heard a lot worse about the council. When you sit in the pub, you hear the locals say it’s corrupt.”  

Tony agreed that mistakes like this only contribute further to the impression. 

For some members of the council, the mistake is also sending the wrong message. Liberal Democrat councillor Sam Al-Hamdani said: “I understand the financial implication is pretty small. But the level of ineptitude it reveals is shocking.

“My concern is that the payroll process [the cause of the issue] has been rated ‘weak’ or ‘inadequate’ for seven out of the eight last years. And it’s not being addressed.

“We don’t actually know the scale of the problem – what if it’s affecting far more than councillors’ allowances?”

A spokesperson for the council previously noted the local authority is ‘in the process of fixing the error to ensure it doesn’t happen again’. 

And leader of the council Arooj Shah said, “It’s interesting that the two elected members shouting the loudest about this weren’t present in the meeting where this was discussed. Sometimes it’s like dealing with children who refuse to acknowledge what’s actually happened.

“Council Officers came and briefed Group Leaders that during an audit they’d found an administrative error in payroll regarding members allowances, the members allowances report was then pulled from the agenda for the council meeting because it would have been incorrect.”