A CHARITY was paid several thousand pounds by a council to care for someone after they had died.

Enable Scotland coined in the cash from East Renfrewshire Council for months after the service user passed away.

The charity has an arrangement with the local authority to provide care for people with learning disabilities in the region.

An inspection report published in 2013 found "discrepancies" in finance records that suggested "auditing procedures at both a local level and at head office are not as thorough as they should be".

The Care Inspectorate also noted that "some of the paperwork would benefit from review" and "improved auditing would also make sure that records were accurate".

The Evening Times has now learned that Enable Scotland continued charging East Renfrewshire Council for months after the death of a service user.

A source close to the charity said: "They were invoicing for providing support to someone who had died several months earlier.

"East Renfrewshire Council continued paying the invoices and was completely unaware. The bill ran into thousands of pounds but a deal has now been done with the council.

"It was a cock-up rather than a conspiracy so a few people are rather red-faced at Enable and at the council."

A spokeswoman for East Renfrewshire Council confirmed the error, which has now cost the local authority thousands of pounds.

She said: "The matter was identified and acknowledged by both parties. We instructed Enable to invest the money in another area of care provision. There is no outstanding balance."

East Renfrewshire is run by a coalition of Labour and SNP councillors, along with one independent, Danny Devlin.

The opposition is led by Conservative councillor Gordon McCaskill, who is a member of the council's Audit and Scutiny Committee.

He said: "A council which prides itself on transparency should have brought this to us. The fact that this doesn't appear to be the case would suggest there should be an investigation.

"Given that East Renfrewshire Council must make £22m worth of cuts over next three years and has only thus far identified £17.4m of cuts, it seems to me that any monies outstanding should be recovered to mitigate this shortfall."

A spokesman for Enable Scotland said: "I've talked to our people who work with East Renfrewshire Council and our line is that we would not comment on individual cases or contractual arrangements between ourselves and local authorities."