An agency worker attempted to reclaim £1,239 spent on a UK work visa by submitting it as a flight expense, an internal fraud investigation has revealed.
The unnamed worker at City Hall, believed to be an IT specialist, initially tried to claim the full visa cost as travel expenses.
When informed of the £400 limit on individual claims, they submitted three separate claims for the maximum amount and a fourth for the remaining £39.
The attempted breach of Greater London Authority financial rules was discovered during a chance investigation by the internal counter fraud team.
According to the counter fraud report presented to the London Assembly, the expense was coded as "Travel via flight" but was actually for a Certificate of Sponsorship from UK Visas & Immigration.
The GLA routinely covers work permit costs for foreign workers, typically through managers' corporate credit cards.
Dianne Tranmer from the GLA's corporate resources team admitted to the audit panel: "I'm not sure how many [visa] sponsorships we are doing."
City Hall continues to rely on temporary workers a slight reduction in the total number.
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS:
Latest figures show the GLA spends almost £9m annually on 104 agency staff
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Latest figures show the GLA spends almost £9million annually on 104 agency staff, with costs rising from £8,241,004 to £8,955,133 year-on-year.
Guidelines introduced last year limit agency staff contracts to 12 weeks, but the average contract length has increased from 40 to 54 weeks.
GLA auditors report there are "no clear plans" to reduce agency staff numbers.
Neil Garratt, the Conservative chairman of the London Assembly's audit panel, expressed alarm at discovering "multiple steps of questionable behaviour" regarding the claim.
Sadiq Khan
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He said: "It was clearly known to not be a flight."
Speaking to the Evening Standard, Garratt questioned the GLA's financial controls: "No one could tell me if it's normal to sponsor an immigration visa for an agency temp, or even how many visas in total the GLA is sponsoring."
He criticised the lack of oversight from the GLA, which is currently run by Sadiq Khan, noting the case only emerged through a random audit check.
He said: "Sometimes I wonder if Sadiq Khan's City Hall has a grip of anything at all."
The GLA confirmed the worker is now on a fixed-term contract ending December 31 and stated the claim was not classified as fraudulent following review.