Moray Council is finding it difficult to return £80,000 belonging to 10 dead clients.
Some of the money has been held in the local authority’s bank account for four years.
The cash is part of the Corporate Appointeeship scheme. It allows local authorities to pair up officers with people getting benefits who are not able to manage their own finances.
The issue was discussed at a meeting of the audit and scrutiny committee this week.
Conservative councillor for Keith and Cullen Donald Gatt asked what action was being taken to get the money back to clients’ estates.
He said: “The corporate bank account has more than £80,000 in funds in relation to combined balances of 10 deceased clients.
“Some of these have been held for four years, which in this day and age seems an extraordinary length of time.”
Audit and risk manager Dafydd Lewis explained health and social care had been in touch with legal services. They are pursuing ways of identifying beneficiaries.
He said: “I think there is difficulty where there is nobody coming forward and they cannot identify if individuals have any family members.
“There is an issue there and they are pursuing this particular issue.
“The nature of a social worker dealing with the funds indicates there is no immediate family member there to assist.
No family members
“So there is a degree of difficulty in identifying individuals where this money could potentially be paid.”
Mr Gatt also asked why cash was being used to pay for client’s purchases instead of using a card.
He said: “We’ve seen in recent years there’s been a huge reduction in the use of cash particularly during the pandemic.
“If you use a card you have a transaction record there, that would seem to be a lot easier to account for rather than physical cash.
“That would be a bit more bureaucratic than if you’re using a card for payment.”
Mr Lewis explained some clients’ choose to use cash.
Cash payments ‘bureaucratic’
He said: “If an individual is making a large payment they would use a cheque or card.
“A service user who wants to make a smaller purchase using cash, they need physical cash.”
An audit report into the Corporate Appointeeship found 59 people are managed by the scheme. A combined value of £483,000 is held in the council’s corporate bank account.
A total of £80,482 belongs to the 10 deceased clients.
While the audit found money was being well managed, a review of handling procedures will be carried out.
Consideration will also be given to holding money belonging to deceased clients in a separate account. The length of time funds can be kept will be investigated.
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