£50m 'golden goodbyes' given to council fat cats
HUNDREDS of council fat cats have banked six-figure pay-offs despite pressure to slash public spending, it has been revealed.
Taxpayer-funded redundancy packages of at least £100,000 were handed out to 450 local authority staff in the last financial year, totalling more than £50million.
The biggest pay-off went to Kent County Council’s former managing director, Katherine Kerswell, who received £589,165 after 20 months in the job.
Other golden goodbyes went to officials who rapidly secured fresh employment elsewhere within the public sector.
Ministers raised concerns over the scale of the payments and warned councils against their “casual attitude to spending”.
Ms Kerswell, who left her £200,000-a-year job at the Toryrun council in December, was described as the architect of a savings programme aimed at slashing 1,500 staff by 2015.
Dipping into the public purse to make such eye-watering pay-offs is unacceptable
The council said Ms Kerswell did an exceptional job at reshaping its “approach to service delivery”.
More than £100,000 was also handed to 36 employees at Lancashire County Council, including two who walked away with £300,000, and 13 staff at Staffordshire County Council.
Pay-offs topping £200,000 went to at least 25 council employees, including one at London’s poorest borough, Tower Hamlets.
Bob Neill, the local government minister, said:
“These golden goodbyes are deeply concerning.
"Dipping into the public purse to make such eye-watering pay-offs is unacceptable.”
Matthew Sinclair, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said:
“Authorities need to scrap the contracts that lead to these six-figure deals. They are terrible value for money and are unjustified in the current climate.”
A spokesman for the Local Government Association said:
“Councils have delivered bigger savings than almost any other part of the public sector.”