Council workers' £½m pay-off

A link posted in a comment to the previous post leads to an article dated Thursday, July 24, 2008, on This is South Devon and Herald Express website.

The article is interesting in two respects, highlighted in the following quotes from it.

TORBAY Council's 're-shaping' is costing £500,000 in redundancy and other payments for shedding four top officers.

The total cost of the golden handshake for this round of the restructuring is £521,806.

Between them the four — environment director Mike Yeo, strategic director Paul Lucas, legal chief Bill Norman and head of children's services Margaret Dennison — have received £193,826 in redundancy payments.

Another £300,000-plus has had to be paid to their pensions provider to compensate for lost payments as they are taking their pensions early.

It continues,

The council insisted on an official Freedom of Information request from the Herald Express before it would release the latest redundancy payments.

Mrs Dennison received £59,829, Mr Lucas £53,730, Mr Norman £31,823 and Mr Yeo £48,442

And,

Mr Norman has gone to work for another council on Merseyside.

The commenter poses a very valid question, who gave the council's information officer the legal advice?

And if it is legal for Torbay council to "provide details to the public" about "the terms on which an employee agrees to terminate his employment", why is it "unlawful" in Wirral?

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