A former Highland Council social worker is to face allegations that she falsely claimed for hundreds of miles in travel expenses.
Kubeshni Gounder also faces charges that she dishonestly used other social worker’s names to submit financial claims for service users while she was employed by Highland Council.
She will face the charges at a Scottish Social Services committee hearing in Dundee next week.
The charges cover a period between February 2012 and January 2013 when she was employed as a team leader in the children and families department.
She is accused of submitting claims for financial assistance for three separate service users dishonestly. It is alleged that three of these were submitted using the names of other social workers, two of them without their knowledge.
Ms Gounder, 40, is also alleged to have submitted an application for two individual service users who had been authorised by a manager.
And she also faces of charges of submitting a number of applications for three service users, some or all of which were not requested, required or received by the families in question.
Ms Gounder is also accused of submitting 16 applications for financial assistance, five of which were undated, which did not have completed receipts attached detailing that the money had been received by the service user, and which had not been signed by the relevant service user.
Another charge alleges she submitted three applications without receipts attached that had been signed off by the service user, but had been signed off on behalf of another social worker on her instruction.
She is also accused of submitting a further three applications, all of which were not required by the service users on whose behalf the requests were made.
She also faces charges of making false claims for travel expenses, including journeys of 973 and 947 miles in May and July 2012, on which she is accused of forging her manager’s signature.
She is further accused of submitting a string of claims when she had been on sick leave, on annual leave and when her car was in a garage being serviced.
Ms Gounder also faces claims that she submitted false claims for reimbursing two parking tickets when she was not at work.
And on two other occasions she submitted claims for reimbursements of two parking tickets covering overlapping periods of time.
A Highland Council spokeswoman confirmed that Ms Gounder had not worked for the authority for two years but said that she couldn’t comment on personnel matters.