Departments: Pay

Mrs. Lait
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many former employees of her Department are being paid their original salaries after their employment has ended.

Mr. Byrne
Overpayment information is not held centrally and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost. The Home Office does not knowingly pay salaries to staff who have left the Department. Overpayments do occur from time to time, sometimes as a consequence of payments being made to staff who have left the Department, but efforts are always made to recover them.