East Renfrewshire Council (ERC) attempted to hide from public view the fact it has made more than £1.2 million in over payments to external companies, and has so far only managed to recover around two thirds of the cash.

And has now been forced to mark £213,000 of cash as “irrecoverable” thanks to “inadequate” paperwork from a historic payment dispute.

The News has possession of a council report marked “Not for Publication” that highlights “failures” in the administration between the council and the community health and care partnership (CHCP), which oversees health and social care in the, including involvement in major Barrhead services such as the Kirkton Services for the disabled at Barrhead Health Centre.

The contents of the report were kept from the public domain after the council invoked Paragraph 12 of Part 1 of Schedule 7A of the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973.

This clause allows the authority to keep papers private in the event that any legal proceedings — civil or criminal — are possible against or by the council relating to the information in the document, incase the contents should prejudice any trial.

An internal audit investigation has taken place, which a source said: “Is being really pushed through hard to get to the bottom of things.” However it is believed that no legal investigation is underway.

Opposition leader Gordon Mccaskill made reference to the document at a meeting of East Renfrewshire’s full council on Wednesday last week, and while he was restricted in what he could say about the content of the paper, he had his own reservations.

He asked: “Will the police be informed?”.

He was told no by council officers, and that at the time of the meeting, no legal action had been taken by the council.

However he went on to say: “While I can not comment on the content of the report, I would say that if you have a reasonable apprehension that legal action might be taken, then the police should be informed beforehand.

“The fact that this exemption was used under the Local Government (Scotland) Act shows that there was reasonable concern that it could lead to legal action.

“What if it later transpires that the council has been a victim of fraud?” The CHCP also oversees homecare and social care for the elderly and disabled at home and in other areas of the community.

ERC has described the situation as “unacceptable” while stressing that the same mistakes will not be made again.

A spokeswoman for East Renfrewshire Council said: “Whilst the delay in recovering overpayments from third party suppliers is unacceptable, we expect there will be no financial loss to the Council and we are certain there will be no impact on services. It is standard practice to provide block payments to care providers that are reviewed and reconciled at the end of each year. As soon as the overpayments were identified the council immediately engaged with the relevant providers to recover the balance and this is reflected in our year-end accounts for 2014/15.

However, a source, who wishes to be anonymous, said: “This is a deeply concerning revelation, and it shows a complete lack of awareness in the council.

“It is deeply unprofessional and now a large sum of public money is gone.” This comes after the Care Inspectorate noted paperwork at the local authority and in the care body “was not as thorough as they should be” in an April report.

Additonally, it was revealed that ERC had continued to pay the Enable Scotland charity for the care of a resident for weeks after they passed away.

The latest report, seen by councillors on June 4 at a meeting of the council’s cabinet, states that failings in how the authority and CHCP deals with paperwork for payments are responsible for the overpayments, which includes more than £800,000 being incorrectly paid to a single company.

The company is simply listed as company “A” in the papers.

It highlights inconstancies in information passed from care staff to finance staff on changes in care packages, a failure to amend payments to providers when known changes have taken place and a failure to reconcile the differences between care packages and payments to the care providers.

This has resulted in an astonishing £899,678 being overpaid to company “A”, £138,520 being overpaid to company “B” and £231,783 being paid to a third company “C”.

This means that the council has unnecessarily paid out £1,269,981.

Now £213,658 of tax payers’ money has been completely written off by ERC.

The spokeswoman added: “The delay in recovering overpayments is a result of both complex financial systems and complex care packages. A major programme of work to implement a new care finance system was already well underway, and as a result, will ensure that this does not happen again. This has already been subject of a public report to the Audit Committee.” “We do not intend to pursue the disputed sum of £213,000, which is a totally separate issue and part of a historic payment dispute with a former provider. This will have no impact on services whatsoever.” The report stated: “In the course of this exercise (a review of learning disability providers) a historic payments dispute with a former learning disability care provider has also been reviewed in conjunction with legal services.

As a result of inadequate contract documentation, it has been determined that the council should no longer pursue the recovery of the disputed sum of £213,658.

ERC has now been forced to take steps to rectify the situation and restore order to the bureaucratic minefield, with the council’s Chief Auditor directed to carry out a full review and ERC drafting in “high level accountancy support” to oversee the recovery.

The income generated by the recovered money means that the care body, the CHCP is now operating within it’s budget for the year, and £878,335 has been added to the council’s accounts.