Pickles plans to make it cheaper to sack chief execs

Communities and Local government secretary Eric Pickles said he wanted to clear up the ‘legal minefield’ that can pressure councils into handing out ‘bumper pay-offs’ to senior officers they want to dismiss. He had previously said the cost of payouts to redundant town hall chiefs had hampered attempts to pool staff and resources between authorities.

Pickles pledged to change regulations requiring an independent person, usually a Queen’s Counsel lawyer, to review dismissal and disciplinary cases for chief executives, chief finance officers and monitoring officers.

Currently, the Local Authorities Regulations 2001 state that a council must appoint ‘a designated independent person’ to investigate proposals to remove individuals from these posts. The regulations also say that ‘no steps are to be taken before a report is made’ and that a council has to pay the costs of the process. The government now intends to amend the regulations so that all references to the independent person process are removed. Pickles said the current system created a slow and costly bureaucracy, with the review process costing up to £250,000 in legal fees. It is therefore “no wonder councils are cowed into reaching for the parachute pay-offs at the first sign of trouble,” he added.

“A town hall chief executive costs a lot of money, but if they are simply not up to the job, councillors must be able to get rid of them quick smart without having to throw away thousands in parachute pay-offs,” Pickles said.

Sir Steve Bullock, Chairman of the LGA’s Workforce Board, said: “The overwhelming majority of council chief executives are highly competent and dedicated public servants and it is important that they are protected by the same employment laws as everyone else. However, speeding up the process of removing incompetent or unsuitable managers of any rank is a positive step.