A report produced by the TaxPayers Alliance has revealed that they made a freedom of information request to Cheshire East Council for disclosure of settlement agreement data for the period 2016-19. However, the report discloses that the Council "refused to give year-by-year breakdown (data protection grounds)."
Cheshire East Council
The TaxPayers Alliance commissioned a report to determine how much local authorities had paid out nationwide on settlement agreements between 2016-19, and as part of that survey they sent out freedom of information requests to all 408 local authorities in the UK, including Cheshire East Council.
The vast majority of the local authorities approached provided the TaxPayers Alliance with all of the information requested. Cheshire East Council was one of the few that did not. According to the report published by the TaxPayers Alliance, the reason give by Cheshire East Council was: "refused to give year-by-year breakdown (data protection grounds)."
In its guide to the use of settlement agreements, Cheshire East Council state: "The Council uses settlement agreements as a matter of course for all voluntary redundancies / severances and this applies to all employees, including Chief Officers. The use of standard settlement agreements on this basis minimises any risk of future claims against the Council and can ensure that any threatened or pending legal proceedings and their associated legal costs can be avoided. The Council follows the current guidance for public sector settlement agreements in these circumstances."
Cheshire West and Chester Council was also one of the minority of local authorities who refused to provide the TaxPayers Alliance with the settlement agreement data requested, despite the freedom of information request. The reason that that Council provided for refusing disclosure was: "refused under section 12." Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 allows a public authority to refuse to deal with a freedom of information request where it estimates that the costs involved in providing disclosure would exceed what is known as the 'appropriate limit' or 'costs limit'. The limit for Councils is £450.00 at £25.00 per hour (18 hours of work).
The TaxPayers Alliance Report
Unlike Cheshire East Council and Cheshire West and Chester Council, the majority of local authorities provided the TaxPayers Alliance with the information requested.
The TaxPayers Alliance report reveals that local authorities entered into an astonishing 6,980 settlement agreements in total during the period 2016-19, with £98,059,105,00 paid out overall. The average payout was £14,048.59.
Stoke-on-Trent City Council paid out £195,463.00 on 371 settlement agreements, the highest total amount paid out during the 3 year period, and also the highest number of settlement agreements entered into. The Council with the highest average payout was Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council, with an average payout on their settlement agreements of £79,628.00.
Commenting on the findings for the the TaxPayers Alliance, representative Darwin Friend stated: “Though settlement agreements are sometimes necessary, councils need to remember that it’s ratepayers who foot the bill. These settlements have been signed at the same time that the vast majority of local authorities have increased council tax, meaning some have spent huge sums on hush money while hiking up local rates.“
Friend added: “Given that almost 50 councils have managed to spend nothing on these deals, it should be perfectly possible for those paying the most to do better and keep down the costs of individual golden goodbyes.“
Freedom Of Information Requests
As stated, the TaxPayers Alliance obtained the data for their report through freedom of information requests. Moreover, as the large amounts being paid out by local authorities have come under growing scrutiny in recent times, more and more freedom of information requests of this nature have been made by the media.
One freedom of information request revealed that the City of York Council had entered into 33 settlement agreements, with a total pay out of £523,427.00 during a 4 year period between 2016 –20, with an average pay out of £15,861.42.
