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The House of Commons Fees Office has been drawn into another expenses news item, though this one relates to the fraudulent actions of an official in the payment office. Andrew Gibson, a Resources Budget Officer created fake expense claims to pay off gambling debts.

The crooked official submitted false invoices for secretarial services against the names of Tam Dalyell, Linda Perham and Matthew Green, MPs who were retiring or otherwise leaving their constituencies following the General Election of 2005.

During that year, Gibson made three payments totalling £5,875 into the bank account of his friend Toni Pomfret, both of whom had worked with the post office.

The discrepancies with the payments came to light as a result of the general investigation into MP’s expenses. Mr Dalyell alerted the police when a claim he did not recall submitting was examined . Gibson and Pomfret’s fingerprints were detected on the claim forms.

Having both pleaded guilty, Gibson was jailed for nine months and Pomfret for six months.

With increasing transparency of expenditure across the UK public sector, we have seen more stories expressing “outrage” at levels of expenses claims.

The cost of expenses probably shouldn’t surprise anyone, though in more frugal times, the message of “restraint” needs to be heeded …. and not just by those with purchasing cards or in high-profile public sector roles.

Just because an expense claim is “within the rules” doesn’t mean it looks fair or reasonable to external review. The MPs expenses saga is a prime example of this and other examples are being widely quoted.

Nevertheless, your organisation’s expense rules should operate as an important guarantee of propriety in practice as well as supporting effective financial control.

Given it’s importance then, it must seem surprising, using data from GlobalExpense in their 2010 report that -

• 11% of all claims approved by managers are out-of-policy
• one-fifth of hotel claims are out-of-policy out-of-policy
• 29% of entertainment and hospitality claims are out-of-policy
• 40% of mileage claims are submitted without VAT receipts – hindering VAT reclaiming

Contrary to some reports, however, just because a claim is “out-of-policy” does not mean it is “fiddled”. There are occassions when the standards and limits written into policy have become outdated or where the particular circumstances related to an expense item would justify the exception. Read the rest of this entry →

Attractor has just completed work with an NHS organisation implementing its first “self service solution”.

The new toolkit provides online expenses claims and authorisation workflow for front-line teams.

Like all NHS organisations, it was important to integrate systems and process management with the ESR solution.

The client needed to tighten expense controls, streamline business processes, improve policy and legal compliance, reduce opportunities for fraud and improve the speed of reimbursement. Read the rest of this entry →

The technology supporting effective employment and deployment of the workforce are vital for most businesses, but become especially important as businesses grow beyond a few hundred. Up to that point, keeping staffing lists and employee information is a moderate challenge. After that it gets really serious.

Keeping track of who works in each location, function, role, when they are scheduled to be on duty and when they actually attend for work is demanding – for front line managers, human resources and payroll teams.

There are plenty of solutions on offer promising to solve al your problems. But accepting the marketing information of an effective sales team often leads to disappointment.

It is all too common for businesses to report failure to realise benefits after installing software systems and this can reflect a mismatch between the needs or expectations and the features and technology of the system purchased.

Often however, the technology takes the rap for the results of ineffective planning, wrecked configuration and deployment and poor change management. It’s always easier to blame “the system” than admit these other deficiencies.

Attractor has helped organisations to clarify business need and turn this into specifications for procurement, sometimes supporting evaluation and selection of systems. Beyond that stage, working with local stakeholders and operational teams, Attractor’s support and expert contributions to benefits planning and change management activity have ensured organisations deliver the return on investment required.

The concept of “Workforce Management Systems” covers a wide range of technologies and Attractor has worked on many of these, including -

• Human Resources and Payroll Information Systems
• Manager and Employee Self Service Solutions
• Staff Scheduling and Roster Management Systems
• e-Recruitment Systems
• Time and Attendance Systems
• eHR and HR Portals
• Expenses Management Systems
• Learning Management Systems
• e-Learning Solutions
• Training Administration Systems

With expenses in the news for months, MPs and Directors (both public and private sectors) have been in the firing line.

Policy compliance is the issue and employers’ experience suggests people tend (accidentally or deliberately) to inflate expense claims!

In the NHS, people report neither claiming, nor properly receiving, expenses they are entitled to … and Atractor’s experience suggests this is true.

Does the NHS environment reduce the need for an automated claims management process? Is there a risk that NHS Trusts will fall for suppliers’ hype about the benefits of automation?

More claims from better-informed employees may well offset savings from better compliance and more accurate calculations. This is really no defence for keeping employees in the dark about entitlements, or for retaining inefficient working methods. Read the rest of this entry →

A special health authority determined the need for a self service expenses management solution, supporting claim, authorisation and payment processes and linked to ESR, the NHS integrated HR and Payroll system. Attractor was asked to support the project by writing the system specification, contributing to the procurement process and helping to evaluate solutions available. Read the rest of this entry →