February 5: The Seriously Disadvantaged
DOES out-going
KCC chief executive Peter Gilroy deserve the
£200,000 windfall payment he stands to collect on
the day that he leaves his job in a couple of months?
There is no doubt that the
council’s Conservative administration believes he is – or at least
he was back in 2006 – when a clause was inserted into his contract
entitling him to the extra sum.
And so, too, did opposition
Labour and Liberal Democrat members of KCC’s personnel committee
who, it seems, also agreed to the proposal.
But however much KCC might seek
to defend the payment – and back in 2006, the backlash over public
sector pay packages was only beginning to be stirred – I
suspect that in the court of public opinion today, a rather
different and more damning verdict will be reached.
How KCC
chief stands to receive windfall - read our story
here>>>
Peter Gilroy has been a
successful chief executive. He has presided over a period when KCC
has been consistently been rated as one of the country’s
best-performing authorities (There have blips, of course -
Icelandic investments spring to mind).
That was his job and he has been
paid handsomely – some have argued too handsomely - for doing
it.
But I really doubt whether there
are many people who will have much sympathy for the contention made
by KCC leader Paul Carter that without an agreement to pay him the
additional sum of £200,000 he risked being "signifantly
disadvantaged."
KCC defends pay-off for outstanding chief
executive>>>
Social workers, low paid care
assistants, clerical staff and others facing a pay freeze, let
alone hard-pressed council taxpayers about to get their latest
bills, will no doubt have some difficulty empathising with this
plight.
Some may also wonder why, if
this was going to be the price to retain the chief executive’s
services for a further year, KCC did not simply agree to part
company and begin the search for a replacement in time for
2009.
Interestingly, the report leaked
to us made no mention of the apparent disadvantage that might ensue
if the terms of the new contract were not agreed, focusing only on
the necessity of doing so "to ensure continuity of officer
leadership during and immediately after the county council
elections."
It is worth pointing out that
following Mr Gilroy’s announcement that he was to leave, the
Conservative leadership did, for a while, contemplate whether to do
without a chief executive at all.
Had they done so, they would
have had some even more challenging questions to answer than they
have this week.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
WHEN KCC agreed to substantial
six-figure pay-offs when two former senior directors left in 2009,
the authority emphasised how it had referred the packages to the
Audit Commission, the public spending watchdog, to ensure they
represented value for money.
Was the same thing done when the
county council agreed to the terms of Mr Gilroy’s new contract
extension?
Thursday, February 04 2010