Moray Council's difficulties in finding rightful owners of £80,000
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Moray Council is having difficulties in returning £80,000 which once belonged to 10 health and social care clients who have died.
The cash is part of the corporate appointeeship scheme, which allows local authorities to pair up social workers with people who are unable to manage their own finances.
Some of the money has now been held in the local authority’s bank account for four years.
Questions were asked at a meeting today of the audit and scrutiny committee about what action was being taken to return the cash to its rightful owners.
Councillor Donald Gatt (Keith and Cullen, Conservative) said: "The corporate bank account has more than £80,000 in funds in relation to combined balances of 10 deceased clients.
"Some of these have been held for four years, which in this day and age seems an extraordinary length of time."
Audit and risk manager Dafydd Lewis explained health and social care had been in touch with legal services, who are pursuing ways of identifying beneficiaries.
Mr Lewis said: "I think there is difficulty where there is nobody coming forward and they cannot identify if individuals have any family members.
"There is an issue there and they are pursuing this particular issue.
"The nature of a social worker dealing with the funds indicates there is no immediate family member there to assist.
"So there is a degree of difficulty in identifying individuals where this money could potentially be paid."
A total of 59 people are currently part of the corporate appointeeship scheme in Moray.
