Ministry of Justice employees overpaid by 1.5m pounds

Freedom of Information Act requests revealed more than 1,000 staff at the department were overpaid a total of £1,522,995 over the last three years – but more than half that total will never be paid back.

In one case, a civil servant nearly doubled their salary. The unnamed official was handed an extra £18,500, on top of annual earnings of £22,000.

The department, which is responsible for prisons, the probation service and the courts, admitted £904,076 has been written off.

Officials said the errors were uncovered when a new payroll system was brought in after the department was created out of part of the Home Office and the Department for Constitutional Affairs.

A Ministry of Justice spokesman said "The ministry is committed to full recovery of public money and will actively pursue reimbursement in all cases. It does, however, recognise its duty of care to employees and so will deal sensitively with these matters .... It is confident that the actions it is taking will result in a significant reduction in overpayments this year." 

Why am I not surprised that over 1,000 people in the Ministry of Justice aren't honest about their wages? 

Did anyone get underpaid - I bet they complained - so why didn't management then check more thoroughly for any other under/over payments? 

How about eliminating overpayments, not just having a 'significant reduction' - but a reduction down to zero? 

I assume the Employees Tax Returns returns reflect what they received?