Dodgy dealings see top council bosses pocket a fortune
Brian Smith
Scottish Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) supporters have been highlighting and protesting for months the dodgy early retirement deals given to several top council officials in Glasgow.
Top officials from Glasgow City Council have ripped off council tax payers through unlawful early retirement and voluntary service packages. Annemarie O’Donnell, the previous Chief Executive, has benefited from £350,000 she was not due through inappropriate pension enhancements and severance pay.
A KC legal report commissioned by the council says: “ the justification for the early retirement of the former Chief Executive was not supported by the staffing restructure report or any other accompanying correspondence…….it is considered that the former Chief Executive’s application for early retirement was not, on the face of it, lawfully approved in terms of the council’s Scheme of Delegated Functions.”
For a council employee to be afforded enhanced early retirement their job or a closely related job must be “deleted” as a saving to the council.
This did not happen. The Chief Executive is a singleton post, the only one at Grade 15 in the council pay structure. The council appointed a new Chief Executive to the same job, on the same terms and conditions and sitting on the same chair in the city chambers. There was no deletion of the job.
Completely unfair and immoral. Not only to the wider council workforce who need to play by the rules but more importantly to the people of Glasgow who pay their council tax. The £350,000 could be better spent supporting local communities across Glasgow. The council should purse O’Donnell for the £350,000.
A socialist run council would never have approved such greed. Elected socialists would direct council officials and civil servants not the other way round. A socialist council would never allow senior officers to write their own early retirement packages. But the SNP did in Glasgow.
It’s a disgrace. The working class of the city want their £350,000 back. Whose side is the SNP on? Are they going to recover our stolen money?
