POLICE are investigating potentially illegal overpayments and theft claims connected to Oxfordshire County Council.

A panel of councillors has been told of worries of suspected overpayments within the children’s services department and the activity has been referred to the constabulary.

An alleged case of cash theft and false accounting has also been reported to Thames Valley Police, according to council documents.

Papers written by Lorna Baxter, the council’s director of finance, state that a third case – over worries that a procurement card was used incorrectly – is being investigated by a council team.

She stated the details were referred to the Audit Working Group (AWG), which includes councillors, in September.

She adds: “[Councillors] have been briefed on this case and the director of children’s services attended the September AWG meeting to discuss further the system/process weaknesses that these cases have highlighted and the action taken to strengthen controls to reduce potential for reoccurance.”

Ms Baxter continues: “There have been a couple of other whistleblowing referrals which...[have been] passed onto senior management/HR for investigation.”

The report will be seen by councillors at a meeting on Wednesday.

The county council said it will not give any more details on any of the cases until they have been concluded.

Amongst other overpayments found by the county council this year, one of £7,000 was mistakenly made to a provider which had been caring for an elderly person before they died.

Once they had died, the wrong end date of the company’s service was typed into the council’s system.

Another residential care home provider was also being ‘closely monitored’ because of overpayment issues earlier this year, but councillors were told it would be ‘difficult to drop’ the company because of the council’s reliance on it. The council said it was ‘working with [the company] to resolve the problem’ at the time.

According to the most recent spending documents available, the council paid about £11m to care homes and other care providers in August alone.