Kent County Council: Firm paid £63,000 to care for dead person

Deputy council leader Cllr Peter Oakford queried whether “staff and managers are not doing their job correctly”.

But Mr Flannery said the “irregularities” had always occurred.

“It’s just that they haven’t necessarily always been reported to the internal audit,” he added.

He added “significant work” had been carried out by the counter fraud team to raise awareness and work with management to “mitigate risk of irregularities occurring again.”

The Local Government Information Unit also suggested that Kent’s management systems were not “different to other large councils”.

Jonathan Carr-West, its chief executive, said: “County councils are large and very complex organisations handling a vast number of transactions each year and they handle services across a huge spectrum.”