The individual was due to receive £59.95 per week, but instead, a typing error meant that £59,395 was deposited into their bank instead.

The Courier reported that by the time the mistake had been noticed, the individual had received five instalments of the money during July and August.

The money sent totalled to almost £297,000.

Fife Council has since recovered all but £12,000 of the money sent. The council stated that the mistake was due to a “keying error” and that a new system had since been implemented.

Jacqueline Armitage, service manager, said: “Unfortunately a keying error resulted in the wrong payment being issued and, as it was set up as an automatically recurring payment, multiple payments were made.

“The incorrect recurring payment should have been picked up as part of our normal checks, so we’ve now put an additional reporting mechanism in place to create a dual-checking system.

“We retrieved the majority of the funds and have agreed a repayment plan for the outstanding amount.”