A director at a Specsavers branch has been suspended by the Health and Care Professions Tribunal Service for wrongfully claiming more than £77,000 in expenses.
Mark Edgar worked as a hearing aid dispenser and was also a partner at the Edgware Road branch of Specsavers Hearcare in London. He began working for the company in 2006 and resigned in March 2021 after an internal investigation into his expense claims.
The investigation was instigated after an expense claim in January 2021 appeared “significantly high” against the category of PAYE settlement agreements.
On further analysis, it was revealed that Edgar had submitted almost £18,000 in claims that were labelled wrongly, duplicated or against company policy. Some of these were attributed as tax settlements to employees when they were personal expenses.
The tribunal heard that he also claimed around £45,000 in vouchers between 2008 and 2021 for personal use. During the pandemic, he claimed for more than £1,000 worth of staff gift vouchers to “lighten his financial burden”.
Edgar used the vouchers as “a way to quickly and easily take money from the business”, initially as a means of paying his ex-wife and supporting his children.
Other expense claims included meals with his romantic partner, who worked at another branch of Specsavers.
He claimed these would be “work-related meals” so the couple did not have to discuss their work at home, but the tribunal found there was “no way of demonstrating these were legitimate business meetings”.
A full report into his conduct found that his expenses liability between 2008 and 2021 was potentially as much as £77,215.
Edgar claimed that his partners in the business were “well aware of his actions” and were happy to sign off on his expenses. He added that “there was no harm in trying” to get away with fake expense claims.
The tribunal noted that although there was an expenses policy available on the Specsavers intranet, and a declaration box employees were required to tick when submitting expenses, Edgar had not received any training on expenses policies.
The panel agreed that a serious breach of professional standards had occurred, and he was suspended for one year.
He was not struck off as he had “demonstrated some insight” and there had been no further concerns since 2021. Edgar had referred himself to the HCPC and had fully cooperated with investigations and proceedings, they added.
“[Edgar’s] conduct fell far below what was expected and was conduct which fellow professionals would regard as deplorable,” the HCPC found.
“The public expected registered hearing aid dispensers to act with integrity and honesty. Over-claiming expenses inflated the cost of business and was an unethical practice.”
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