COUNCIL staff acted “in good faith” over a saga which saw a councillor overclaim hundreds of pounds of taxpayers’ money, according to the council’s chief executive.

An independent investigation found that Brighton and Hove City Councillor Alex Phillips, who represents the Green Party in Regency ward, overclaimed as much as £482.34 for childcare expenses over 18 months.

Cllr Phillips was found to have overclaimed for 55 of her 74 expenses claims between October 2019 and March 2021, with some claims approved by council staff without receipts or supporting information.

The councillor has repaid £490 and apologised for the “small number of claims I made which were not in line with the council expenses policy”.

In a meeting of the council’s audit and standards committee, Abraham Ghebre-Ghiorghis, the council’s legal chief, apologised after he assured the former chairman of the committee, Councillor Daniel Yates, that there were no discrepancies with Cllr Phillips’ expense claims.

He told Cllr Yates: “I gave you that assurance as I was given that assurance; I asked the officers who were responsible for that to look at the situation and the feedback I got was that this was in order.”

Geoff Raw, CEO at Brighton and Hove City Council, said that council staff have apologised and that the council accepts the findings of the inquiry.

He said: “All council staff have acted in good faith in relation to this issue and have apologised for instances where the advice they have given based on the information they had at the time has turned out to be incorrect.

“We have made it clear that we accept the findings of the independent review we commissioned into councillor expenses claims. As an organisation, we are committed to learning and implementing its recommendations.”

One claim made by Cllr Phillips saw her claim back money from taxpayers for childcare that did not take place because she and her family were in France at the start of the pandemic.

The councillor, who also served as Mayor of Brighton and Hove and as an MEP, said she wanted to pay for the service anyway due to “the collapse in income for many childcare providers” and admitted she “should not have claimed those payments back from the public purse”.

Cllr Phillips announced earlier this year that both her and her husband, the council’s joint finance lead Tom Druitt, will stand down at the next local election in May 2023.