Fife Sports and Leisure Trust is attempting to claw back tens of thousands of pounds in overpaid wages to staff.
The Courier can reveal 25 people employed at the region’s leisure centres run by the trust on behalf of Fife Council were summoned to a meeting last week and told they had a fortnight to repay the money given to them in error.
It is understood the mistake occurred almost two years ago when contracts with some workers were renegotiated.
Overpayments were made on a monthly basis for 22 months before the blunder was noticed by management.
One woman received a demand for more than £2,000 and said she is extremely worried about how she would pay back a lump sum in such a short space of time.
After being contacted by The Courier, the trust said repayment plans would be an option for affected employees.
The husband of a staff member, who asked to remain anonymous, said employees were handed a letter from the council’s payroll department at last week’s meeting.
It stated the overpayment had occurred between March 2013 and November 2014.
“Her invoice says payment is due by February 10 but they did not provide any payslips to verify the debt,” he said.
“I’m taking legal advice on this. It’s a disgrace that they’re trying to force somebody to pay this back in a fortnight when it’s taken 22 months to acquire the debt.
“My wife is talking about getting a bank loan but, as far as I’m concerned, the wages department should write it off.
“How can we afford to pay that back in such a short period of time?”
He added: “My wife submits her total hours worked and accepts her wage in good faith as correct.”
A Fife Sports and Leisure Trust spokesperson said it is aware of the overpayment to a small number of staff members. “In keeping with its policy, Fife Sports and Leisure Trust is working with Fife Council, as its payroll provider, to rectify the issues,” the spokesperson said.
“The trust regrets the situation which led to overpayments and is acting to minimise the impact on affected employees.”
Eileen Rowand, head of revenue and shared services for Fife Council, said: “Fife Sports and Leisure Trust operates as a separate organisation and the council has processed the payments in line with the instructions received from the trust.
“Now we have been alerted to the error, we have been asked by the trust to recover the overpayments. We understand that the affected employees may not be able to make this as a one-off payment and for those people repayment plans will be an option.”