Three senior council bosses, suspended over their role in a pay scandal, could be paid off to leave the local authority, according to reports in the media.
Reports in newspapers published by Media Wales, which includes Wales Online, the South Wales Echo and the Western Mail, suggest that Chief executive Anthony O’Sullivan, his deputy Nigel Barnett and head of legal Daniel Perkins could all receive payouts.
Caerphilly County Borough Council has questioned the accuracy of the reports.
Mr O’Sullivan, Mr Barnett and Mr Perkins were all suspended on full pay in 2013 in the wake of a report from the Wales Audit Office.
The report found a decision to award secret pay rises to around 20 council bosses was unlawful because Mr O’Sullivan had himself written a report recommending the pay rises and that he was present at a secret meeting of five councillors that agreed them.
Mr O’Sullivan saw his salary increased from £132,000 to £158,000, although after details of the increase were leaked to the media this was reduced to £5,000.
In an article published on Wales Online, an unnamed council source said: “It has been suggested that the way to settle this matter is by paying off the three officers concerned. It’s likely there will be a confidential report at the next meeting. All members of the committee have been warned not to say anything.
“The amount of money involved in any payoffs is likely to be substantial. I think there will be a lot of public disquiet about this if and when the payoffs go ahead.
“Everything is being kept under wraps, but it’s not right that a deal should be done without the public knowing about it. The council must be transparent about this, especially because the original decision to give the pay rises was surrounded in such secrecy.
“If there hadn’t been a leak to the media, it would all have been hushed up.”
The Wales Audit Office report prompted a police investigation and Mr O’Sullivan, Mr Perkins and Mr Barnett were arrested and charged with misconduct in a public office.
In October last year a judge dismissed the case due to a lack of evidence – prompting criticism of the Crown Prosecution Service from local politicians.
The three have remained suspended on full pay while the council carries out its own internal disciplinary investigation.
Blackwood Labour councillor Nigel Dix, reacting to the press reports, said: “I would be very disappointed and shocked if there were huge payoffs for senior officers.
“We need a full and proper investigation into how the council got itself into the situation we find ourselves in.”
Another Labour councillor, who did not want to be named, said: “What I want to see is the least financial damage [to the council].
“If that means having them back, it means having them back. If it means getting shot of them, then we get shot of them.”
Plaid Cymru group leader Colin Mann said the media reports came as a surprise, and that he had not heard of any plans to payoff the officials.
He said: “It would go down badly with the public if they thought that people who have been paid substantial amounts of money are to be given a lump of money to walk into the sunset. The public would find that very hard to understand.”
A spokesman for Caerphilly County Borough Council said they are challenging the accuracy of some of the media reports.
He said: “The preliminary investigation is still ongoing and the next meeting of the council’s Investigating and Disciplinary Committee will take place on Monday, May 23.
“We would emphasise that the report, which will be considered at that meeting, will not contain any recommendation about offering a settlement.”
It has recently emerged that Mr O’Sullivan has complained to the Wales Audit Office about its report and the author, assistant auditor general for Wales Anthony Barrett.
In a further development, it has also been reported that Mr O’Sullivan has submitted Freedom of Information requests to the council asking it to release all email correspondence between councillors that refer to him.
This is believed to form part of his defence in any potential future disciplinary action by the local authority.
This was the inevitable consequence of allowing officers to plough a furrow which was deliberatly meant to benefit them directly. It is a consequence of elected members sitting back and allowing officers of the Council to do many things unfettered, and largely unscrutinised, by the people we elect to ensure good governance of Caerphilly Borough Council.
The Council appoint all the senior officers of the Council, these people don`t just walk into these jobs, and if a mistake was made in the appointment and career paths of these three individuals by the Councillors who appointed them, allowing them to take on additional duties and responsibilities on the way, then the responsibilitiy for promoting these man from positions in which they may have been supervised in their duties to position where much of their work was `deligated` to them by the Council rests with those who appointed them, lets remind ourselves who did that, and which Councillors were prepared to clearly promote these people to positions of professional incompitence ( if they were competent they would not have been out of step with the Council`s Code of professional conduct).
Let the Councillors, who made these appointments, the senior Councillors who have responsibility for compliance and governence, at the time of appointments come clean and admit they made a wrong judgement, the cost to the Ratepayers of Caerphilly for these ` mistakes in appointing these people` is said to be ` huge`.
I understand this Gang were promoted to the positions in which they were allowed to manipulate their own pay packets, were NOT the current or past, Labour Administrations? This does not let anyone off the hook, there are many areas of Council work in various departments in which officers work with just Ward councillors, and no one else, resulting in objective decisions which can adversly effect the public and spend vast amounts of ratepayers money,
, we just never get to know about them.
some of us know this from personal experience and got all paper work to prove it,as they spent over 24 thousand on a court case for a 350 pound sundry debt they was told to drop for a house they spent nearly 25 thousand on which is still in disrepair,thats just a small part of it,over ten years how much have they wasted on me,thats what you get look for upsetting councillors and council,in there aims to shut you up never mind using people outside the council but thats another story,maybe one day some one will actually look into it ,maybe if we keeping shouting loud enough we will finally be heard,get rid of all the rotten eggs and stop the secret handshakes these false ward councillors really are effecting the wards they control and use their powers to affect what goes within council,(see didnt say labour once)good luck about getting freedom of information our information off false councillors weve never really had even though we asked and paid for numerous times,,,it goes to show most of their work is just word of mouth and a handshake…….ill take the opportunity to say hello mr perkins very nice to see your name in the paper, and it looks like all of your scilence will be bought,
Make your complaint about Council governance, if that is your gripe, to the Auditor General for Wales, if you know they did not respond properly to your Freedom of Information request they have broken the law, seek help from the Information Commissioner, but living with it and complaining about it will not alter it, refer it to higher authority other than the Council.
not as easy as you might think but will look into thank you