Axed council finance boss' £400k payout
| Published date | 11 April 2024 |
| Publication title | Evening Chronicle |
The local authority's former director of resources has now been named among the highest remunerated council officials in the country.
According to the TaxPayers' Alliance annual Town Hall Rich List, Mr Kirkham was awarded £496,403 during 2022/23 in salary, compensation, and pension benefits - the third most of any council employee in the UK.
That is mostly made up of a £419,184 compensation package when his £148,000-a-year post was deleted in July 2022, the biggest payoff for loss of office recorded by any council that year.
In the months prior, Mr Kirkham had been due to depart his role of his own accord after accepting a similar job in his home city of Nottingham. But that offer was later withdrawn and he was ultimately made redundant instead, at what was a time of major upheaval at the civic centre following the departure of previous chief executive Pat Ritchie, council leader Nick Forbes, and a number of other senior figures.
Current chief executive Pam
Smith said at the time the restructure was needed to "make significant ongoing savings" that totalled £320,000 per year.
But Colin Ferguson, leader of the council's Lib Dem opposition, called the payout "beyond shocking" on Monday and questioned whether it was "good value for money" at a time when the council is facing tens of millions of pounds worth of budget cuts.
He added: "When the director of resources role was made redundant, it was claimed that this would contribute to £320,000 a year in staffing savings (alongside the deletion of another role). The payout, over and above standard salary, comfortably exceeds this sum.
"We want to know: how long will it take for this move to break even?
"Put into context, the payout is larger than roughly two thirds of the individual savings proposals put forward by Labour in their budget in March.
"It's larger than either the slashing of the supporting independence scheme or the axing of the discretionary crisis support scheme, both of which the Lib Dems opposed. It can't be dismissed as trivial."
The city council indicated that the cost of the compensation was so high because, on top of a lump sum amounting to four months of his salary as severance pay, the figure also includes additional pension benefits that Mr Kirkham was...
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