A social worker has been struck off for fiddling South Gloucestershire Council out of almost £3,500 by falsely claiming 385 hours she did not work.

Jane Rosalind Gordon recorded her clocking-in-and-out times incorrectly over a two-year period.

When her boss became suspicious, he told her to use the authority’s automated swipe-card system to register her working hours.

But Mrs Gordon reverted to manually recording her start and finish times, prompting an internal investigation that uncovered the scale of her deception, between January 1, 2015, and February 17, 2017, totalling £3,468 in earnings she was not entitled to.

A health and care professions tribunal in London on Friday, May 10, ruled that her dishonesty amounted to misconduct and ordered her to be struck off the register.

At a previous hearing in Bath in November last year, the panel found the allegations proven and suspended Mrs Gordon for six months to allow her to “reflect on her past misconduct and take steps to remediate her misconduct.”

But last week’s tribunal, which she did not attend, heard that she had refused to engage with the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC).

Mrs Gordon, who was employed by South Gloucestershire Council from April 9, 2001, to March 30, 2017, first as a care manager/social worker and then as a social work senior practitioner, had insisted the clocking-in timings were a “data error” and “unintentional”.

The tribunal’s report said: “In September 2015 the registrant’s manager, PE, noticed that the registrant was arriving late for work and leaving early but that her time recording of her hours of work did not reflect this.

“He advised her to use the automated scanning system to record her hours of work and to stop manually recording her start and finish times.

“In January 2017, PE again observed that the registrant was arriving after the start time for her contractual working hours and leaving before they ended.

“On checking the registrant’s time recording, it appeared that the registrant had resumed manually recording her start and finish times.

“PE concluded that the registrant was recording times exceeding those which she actually worked.

Mrs Gordon, who had a previously unblemished record, had told the hearing in November that she felt “overwhelmed by pressures in her personal life and consequently was unable to consider the information provided to her by PE or to take it in”.

But last week’s tribunal ruling said: “Given the serious nature of the misconduct which involved dishonesty over a prolonged period concerning a significant sum of money, the panel considered the matter too serious to take no action or for a caution order.

“The review panel has been presented with no evidence of reflection or remediation by the registrant.

“In all the circumstances, the panel determined that the only appropriate and proportionate sanction was a striking-off order.”