By Julian Whittle Political editor

Last updated at 11:51, Tuesday, 09 February 2010

Carlisle City Council employed a convicted fraudster to work on its controversial job-evaluation programme, the News & Star can reveal today.

Attah Okoji

Police are investigating how Attah Okoji was able to land a sensitive job at the Civic Centre despite being jailed for six months in 2001 for diverting £16,000 from his NHS employer into his own bank account.

Three years later he was convicted again for gaining a pecuniary advantage by getting a job with a Leeds health body by failing to declare his previous conviction.

This time he was spared jail, although the investigation showed he had forged references and submitted false qualifications.

Okoji, 42, of Gateshead, was employed at Carlisle on a temporary contract from July 2008 to Ap ril 2009 as an analyst on job evaluation.

Council chiefs declined to say if they checked his references or qualifications.

A spokeswoman said: “A former temporary member of staff is currently under investigation and the matter has been referred to the police.

“This employee was employed in an administrative role within job evaluation and he had no access or an opportunity to access any information that could have been used for malicious purposes. The administrative role he carried out had no impact on the integrity of job evaluation as his work was checked as part of the process and errors in that work would have come to light some time ago.”

Okoji was convicted for a third time while he was working at Carlisle, unbeknown to his council bosses.

He received a six-month suspended jail sentence for fraud in January 2009.

Newcastle Crown Court heard that he lied to an employment agency to gain work as a temporary assistant human resources manager at St Nicholas Hospital in Gosforth, Newcastle.

The jail sentence was suspended for one year but Okoji was put under a 12-month supervision order, ordered to carry out a 100-hour community punishment and undergo a 19-day thinking-skills course.

Internet search engines bring up details of Okoji’s criminal past but council chiefs did not discover anything until after he left.

They have since launched an investigation.

The News & Star understands that Okoji drew up the pay lines for job evaluation.

The scheme was an attempt by the council to avoid sex-discrimination claims by scoring all employees’ jobs against agreed criteria.

More than 500 staff are in line for a pay rise as a result but 218 stand to lose pay with the cut deferred for 12 months. Some will be £5,000-a-year worse off.

The new structure is due to be imposed on March 1.

Jason Gooding, the council’s deputy chief executive, confirmed that implementation would go ahead as planned.

Dr Gooding said: “We have had our own internal audit and investigation and are confident we have not been exposed to significant risk. He was involved in some of the number crunching we used to set the pay line but if that had been carried out in error we would have known.

“The calculations have been done and done again since he left – triple checked.”

Dr Gooding also confirmed that Okoji would not have had access to details of staff or councillors’ bank accounts.

The trades union Unison, which refused to accept the job-evaluation findings, is to seek assurances that the process was not compromised by Okoji’s involvement.

Regional officer David Armstrong said: “We meet senior managers tomorrow and this is one of the questions we will be asking. We want to be sure.”

Michael Boaden, leader of the council’s Labour opposition, is calling for a further investigation.

He said: “I will be calling for a full and detailed inquiry, once the police investigation is complete, into how this individual was employed, whether references and details on his application form were checked and what safeguards will be put in place to prevent this happening again.”

Mr Boaden is concerned that the Okoji’s appointments shows a “lack of rigour” in council procedures.

He added: “I am even more concerned when you consider that he was doing a highly sensitive and important job.”

First published at 11:25, Tuesday, 09 February 2010
Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk