NOT unreasonable. Not unlawful. That’s the conclusion of Kent County Council’s auditors about various six-figure payouts to some of its top officers – including the infamous £200,000 paid to former chief executive Peter Gilroy.
But while KCC can take some consolation from these conclusions, it can be less sanguine about some of the auditor’s other critical comments about how various deals and compromise payments were negotiated.
Read how Gilroy's £200k cost £408k>>>
And many people will be shocked that the £200,000 payment offered to Mr Gilroy to ensure his pension was not adversely affected after he agreed to extend his contract actually cost the taxpayer a staggering £408,000.
KCC chose not to disclose this information at the time and even in February this year, when The KM Group broke the story about the payment to Mr Gilroy, no-one mentioned that the cost to the public purse was twice the actual sum.
Auditors have a reputation of measuring any criticisms they may have rather carefully but there’s no disguising that they regard the county council’s arrangements for negotiating severance deals as having considerable shortcomings.
Their report talks about “recurring weaknesses” in the authority’s arrangements.
The consideration of value for money “was not adequately documented.” There was a “lack of effective performance management of staff.” There was “little evidence” to show that the council “assessed the relative strength of individual legal claims against it” or that “payments made achieved the best/lowest settlement for council taxpayers.”
Perhaps most damaging is that “reports to members did not always provide a full, balanced view of the circumstances of individual cases.”
In the case of the controversial £200k that came Mr Gilroy’s way “the report to [KCC’s] personnel committee “fell short” of the standards; was "very brief" and “did not set out the full cost to the council - £408k. Neither did it “explore alternative options or evaluate value for money” and “it was not shared in advance with the Director of Finance.”
A pretty serious rap on the knuckles, then, on a subject that has done more to anger council taxpayers’ than probably anything else in the last year.
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