September 18, 2009Government officials overpaid by £1.5m

Officials at a Government department have been overpaid more than £1.5m, it has emerged.
In one case, a civil servant nearly doubled their salary. The unnamed official at the Ministry of Justice was handed an extra £18,500, on top of annual earnings of £22,000.

Freedom of Information Act requests revealed more than 1,000 staff at the

department were overpaid a total of £1,522,995 over the last three years - but more than half that total will never be paid back.

The department, which is responsible for prisons, the probation service and the courts, admitted £904,076 has been written off.

Officials said the errors were uncovered when a new payroll system was brought in after the department was created out of part of the Home Office and the Department for Constitutional Affairs.

Critics said the revelations showed Government "incompetence" was costing taxpayers, and criticised the decision not to try and recover large sums of money.

Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: "It’s simply not acceptable for Government departments to hand out money by accident and then simply write it off.

"Robust systems should be in place to ensure errors like this are not made - but unfortunately this is only one of many government IT fiascos.

"In the private sector, people are losing their jobs or taking wage cuts, but this incompetence means that in the Ministry of Justice money is apparently falling out of the sky."

A Ministry of Justice spokesman said "significant steps" had been taken to tackle the problem.

He said: "The ministry is committed to full recovery of public money and will actively pursue reimbursement in all cases. It does, however, recognise its duty of care to employees and so will deal sensitively with these matters.

"The ministry accepts the Audit Committee report and is determined to see improvement in this area. It is confident that the actions it is taking will result in a significant reduction in overpayments this year."

Story from: Yorkshire Post

September 16, 200935 year insolvency completed

One of the longest running insolvencies in the UK has been completed after an eye-watering 35 years.

Liquidators from UHY Hacker Young have completed dealings on Apal, a tour operator that ironically went bust during the last banking crisis in 1974 after the Israel-British bank collapsed.

Last month the firm paid the last of seven dividends to more than 500 creditors, including holidaymakers, airlines and hotels. The first dividend was paid out in the 1970s

Creditors received 74p in the pound.

The delay in payments was due to complex loans to third parties and irregularities discovered at the collapsed bank, resulting in lengthy legal actions and criminal proceedings outside the UK.

"This insolvency shows that when a bank fails with significant assets overseas and there are irregularities the process of getting the creditors’ money back can be complex and lengthy," said Ladislav Hornan, managing partner of UHY Hacker Young and sole surviving liquidator.

"When you think of the greater complexity of the modern banking system, creditors could be much worse off if a similar situation happened today. 35 years is a long time to wait for your money.

"It is a relief to finally close the book on this case. It’s particularly satisfying that the creditors got back three quarters of the money they originally lost, which is a very good result for an insolvency despite the passage of time."
Story from: Accountancy Age

September 14, 2009Hackers steal £1m from the taxman

Police are investigating how criminals managed to steal £1m from the taxman by accessing a Government computer system and granting themselves rebates.

The thieves filed returns online using the passwords of genuine self assessment taxpayers - then diverted the money to bogus accounts.
The sting prompted concern yesterday that the fraudsters may have obtained the passwords from one of the many Whitehall laptops stolen over the past few years.

And it is expected to lead to renewed criticism of the Government for making it difficult for people to make their tax returns on paper. So far, six million people have been persuaded to switch to filing them online.
Story from: thisismoney.co.uk

September 2, 2009Companies will have to use XBRL for filing unaudited accounts by 2011

Companies House is to begin taking submissions in the computer language XBRL, following the lead of HM Revenue & Customs which has already decided all company tax returns must be made online using the language from April 2011.


Companies House said it will an XBRL service up and running by the summer of next year for unaudited accounts and will then go to develop the service for all other tyoes of account.


There has been much concern about the timing for the introduction of XBRL. HMRC’s change appears to clash with demands for SMEs to change to international accounting standards. Critics have said the change could cost small businesses thousands of pounds to implement.
Story from:

Accountancy Age