With regard to the Limitations Act bits can SarEI or somebody else please advise whether its 6 years since the mistake was made or debt first occurred OR is it 6 years from discovering the mistake and being notified of the mistake? So if I received a payment over 6 years ago and continued to do so every month since, can the payments of over 6 years ago be recovered or just the ones less than 6 year old?

I promised I would add some links to references I made earlier. In a previous post I mentioned mistakes of law and mistakes of fact. In posting No. 7 of a thread started 23rd August 2007 "query about salary overpayment" (sorry I am not permitted to add links yet) more detail is provided. However, I should have read further. It would seem that recovery after mistakes of law was then permitted following a famous case mentioned in posting No 8 of the same thread. In short SarEI is correct - a mistake is a mistake whether it be in law or fact. There is no difference and the 1996 Employment Rights Act Section 14 permits recovery of overpayments. (still some caveats to be put to that though largely about whether there is evidence to back up any recovery that is attempted). I suggest that evidence over interpretations of rules etc is more difficult to prove than evidence over simple factual errors such as computer calculations.

SarEI - that is brilliant. I now understand much better. Very many thanks for your work on this and your early responses. I will keep you and others posted on how matters develop. When I get access to my other systems I will post the linked references I made in earlier posts.

Once again many, many thanks. I realise it may not seem so but I can accept what you say and acknowledge your experience, but please forgive me if I seek further clarification. I accept what you say about having to pay debts; I cannot dispute this. You mention debt law, but appear to dismiss employment law. My question about a difference between overpayment of wages/salary and overpayment of allowances was in reference to Employmet Law, both statute and case. I hear what you say about going after ex-employees and clearly you are coming from the debt repayment point of view. But in this respect is it equitable to go after some and not others (given that they are also not going after employees who received the same allowances over the same period but simply through ineptitude have not managed to extract them from the database). Is there an Employment Law and indeed Human rights view on all this? I really do understand the debt point of view, especially when such debts have been freel and conciously entered into, but have deep concerns that taken to its ultimate conclusion that anyone can "give" money to anyone else and then subsequently claim it to be a mistake backed up with irrefutable evidence and demand the money back. I hesitate to use the word "laundering". You have though given me heart. I do not believe they have contemperaneous documentary evidence of the criteria that applied at the beginning of the payments being made. I do believe some evidence exists of a difference of interpretation of the criteria in force at the time (without being that explicit about the actual criteria). For these reasons, coupled with the long time of almost 5 months since they raised the issue, the silence since and the silence since the raising of the grievances, I expect them to drop the case. We'll see.

Many thanks for the very quick response. From my own researches SarEI you have not shocked or surprised me. Although, I did pin some hopes on the "mistake in fact"/"mistake in law" argument based upon some case I found elsewhere. (Don't have the details to hand just now, but will post tomorrow.) Can I follow up though please on some of your other points? You stated that they had to provide evidence of the overpayment. We have taken extreme care to refute any overpayment - always using the word "alleged" where appropriate - just to take care that we never admitted to the overpayment - scared that any admission would be used as evidence! One of our defences has been that the criteria currently being cited is different from the criteria being used at the time of the first payments. The problem is we are having difficulty producing our own evidence to that effect, relying so far solely on our collective memories and a bit of logic (possibly flawed). The employer also it would seem has had extreme difficulty with its own record keeping and has not produced so far any evidence regarding the precise nature of the criteria in use at the time. We think all the old records were destroyed during the move from one computer and manual records system to another. It would also seem that our collective memory is far superior to the corporate memory and far superior to the newer HR staff! Am I right in saying that if they cannot produce any written evidence of the criteria in force during each monthly payment then they must drop the case? Where within the law system would this be done, ET or small claims court? If it does come down to repaying would you say that repayment over the same period in which it was paid would be fair? You mentioned 6 years - presumably statute of limitation - in this case many of the payments go way beyond this. You mentioned "especially not if you remain in work". Now don't temp me!!! I assume you mean with the same employer. As redundancy and indeed simply resigning is a distinct possibility, could it be argued that this is likely to thwart recovery? Would resignation in such circumstances be subsequently construed as constructive dismissal? I forgot to mention that we have evidence that employees who also received the allowance over the years but were not in receipt of the allowance in August 2010 have not been pursued similarly. There is also a faint chance that ex-employees may have enjoyed similar alleged overpayment of allowances and we suspect the employer has not pursued them either. (reason - simply because they do not have a clue on how to enquire properly of the computer system!) Are these revelations pertinent and relevant? I also forgot to mention whether in law there is any difference between "salary/wages" and "allowances". The allowance was paid monthly from what I can gather is a matter of convenience. Just how many times can the same mistake be made? Sorry, that last bit is rhetorical - I do accept your point (not totally yet ) that a mistake is a mistake! I don't want to mention the nature of the allowance just yet as I don't think it is really relevant but i will say that it is skilled based and one of the three criteria is that the skill must be utilised 100% of the time. You will see how difficult this can be to "evidence" either way both before and after the event. Once again thanks again in advance of any help. It really is appreciated.

I will try and be brief. In August 2010 a number of us had some deductions made from our salaries only for a compensating amount to be paid back within the same pay statement. Shortly afterwards, we all received letters alleging overpayments of allowances stretching back many years. Many thousands of £ are involved. The letters were not specific regarding which of 3 criteria were allegedly not being satisfied in order to justify payment of the allowance. The allowances were also stopped being paid immediately. We all responded in a similar way, refuting the allegations and asking for further details to which we received no responses. I should state here that none of the employees ever submitted a formal written claim for this allowance. Over the years the process has changed a number of times, but very broadly the Line manager submitted a case for payment of the allowance. In early December 2010, having not heard anything about our refuted allegation and worried that we may miss any chances of airing grievances over the issue itself and the handling of it we raised the appropriate forms, sent to HR, and received acknowledgements back within days. The grievance procedure states that we should be offered interviews by the investigating officer within 2 weeks of receipt. The employer is being very quiet about all this and we think are stalling. We think this may all go back to one single case which was submitted to the pay office many years ago. At that time the criteria was a little ambiguous. It would appear that some correspondence took place between the pay office and a senior line manager, and it was agreed that the allowance should be paid. We suspect other subsequent cases relied upon that precedent. In my own case, many years ago I was told by my Line manager some good news and bad news. The good news was that I was going to receive the allowance; the bad news was that it was not going to be backdated! My view is that these alleged overpayments cannot be recovered on the basis of a review of the criteria and then applied retrospectively. These payments were not mistakes of fact but, a mistake of judgement or interpretation of the criteria. It seems unfair that such alleged overpayments can be recovered. But is the recovery unfair in legal terms? What can we do now if the employer is dragging his heels over all this? Some of us cannot take the stress of all this as much as the others with the threat of having to pay back many thousands of pounds. Hopefully, I have included only the most relevant of facts and tried to be as objective as possible. I have omitted much of the emotional details of the responses made, and the whole questioning of the interpretation of the criteria and seeking evidence of criteria being the same over the years. All of this sort of thing was just knee-jerk defensive posturing at the time of the refuted statements; understandable at the time but not necessary to dwell on here. Does anyone agree that these overpayments have to be repaid in accordance with the law? If so, what is a reasonable amount and over what period? Suffice to say we don't think we should pay any back. All interest, advice and comments warmly thanked for in advance.