Credit cards inquiry at jobs agency

Sep 16 2012

An investigation is under way after staff at the Scottish Government's jobs agency breached policy by withdrawing cash from corporate credit cards for their own use.

Seven Scottish Enterprise staff withdrew more than £10,000 for personal use, the Sunday Herald newspaper reported.

Staff are only allowed to use the cards for business expenses and all bills are supposed to be settled with receipts.

It means that the unofficial transactions will be paid back by staff from their own pocket.

But Scottish Enterprise confirmed an investigation will be held into why so much money was being taken out for personal use.

In one case, an employee withdrew more than £7,500 in foreign currency and was referred for disciplinary proceedings.

Details emerged in documents released under freedom of information rules, which mistakenly failed to black out the potentially embarrassing information.

Iain Scott, Scottish Enterprise chief financial officer, said: "Individual corporate credit card bills are paid for by staff personally. Staff are then reimbursed for legitimate business expenses with supporting receipts.

"At no point have we ever found fraudulent activity and our system also means there is no risk of financial loss to the public purse.

"We treat our data handling responsibilities extremely seriously and were shocked at this breach, which was a result of human error."