Investigations into potential fraud committed by Powys County Council staff could go back years, a council chief has said.

The work of the council’s counter anti-error and fraud team (CAFT) hopes to clawback £1.329 million for the authority by the end of March, and was discussed at a meeting of the council’s Governance and Audit committee earlier this month.

The ongoing work of CAFT saw them have 60 ongoing investigations on their books at the end of December.

This included six investigations into council staff.

Plaid Cymru group leader Cllr Elwyn Vaughan asked: “Is there a time frame to sort those six cases out?

“Because it’s very important that a clear message is sent to members of staff about their duties and responsibilities.”

He added that all councillors had a legal “fiduciary duty” to act in the best financial interests of the council.

“It would send a very clear message of openness and transparency to the public,” he said.

CAFT senior investigator Yvette Kottaun explained that providing a time frame for these investigations would be “very difficult.”

Ms Kottaun said: “You cannot say that you’re going to investigate this in six weeks or six months.

“Until you are actually investigating you don’t know how far it takes you.”

Ms Kottaun gave the committee a “hypothetical” case to explain how her team would handle allegations of a suspicious expense claims over a six month period, that had been made by a council worker.

Ms Kottaun said: “We would get the information from payroll and the service area.

“It would then be reasonable for us to look further back (than six months) to see if this situation has been happening for longer.

“It could be that we are looking at three of four year’s worth of claims.

“It takes as long as it takes.”