Fife Council blunder pays out £300k by mistake

A "keying error" led to a member of the public being paid almost £300,000 by mistake.

The person was due to receive £59.95 a week but a typing error meant £59,395 was paid into their bank instead.

By the time the mistake was spotted, they had received five of the payments during July and August totalling almost £297,000.

Fife Council has now recovered all but £12,000 of the cash.

The council said the mistake had stemmed from a "keying error" and that a new system had been put in place.

Service manager Jacqueline Armitage said: "Unfortunately a keying error resulted in the wrong payment being issued and, as it was set up as an automatically recurring payment, multiple payments were made.

"The incorrect recurring payment should have been picked up as part of our normal checks, so we've now put an additional reporting mechanism in place to create a dual-checking system.

"We retrieved the majority of the funds and have agreed a repayment plan for the outstanding amount."