Spending Public Money
A kind reader has passed on the following article from the Hamilton Advertiser.
With so many low paid workers in South Lanarkshire Council still fighting for equal pay - isn't it interesting to note that public money is in such plentiful supply - when it comes to senior council officials.
"Director of under-fire finance department on 'gardening leave' for two months"
"The boss of South Lanarkshire Council’s beleaguered finance department has been on PAID ‘gardening leave’ since October, the Advertiser can reveal.
Linda Hardie earned about £120,000 a year as director of the department who were scammed by African fraudsters and miscalculated by £40m the amount of cuts facing the council.
She is unlikely to be back at her desk before April.
By that time she will be 50 and is due to retire... on full pension.
Insiders say her severance package comprises a lump sum of up to £250,000 and an annual pension estimated at between £30,000 and £50,000 a year.
The council will have to pay part of the package because she is leaving for efficiency reasons before the age at which she would normally access her pension.
Council bosses agreed to enhance her pension – at the expense of Council Tax payers – even though her five-year contract as finance director ends in April.
Council chief executive Archie Strang and head of finance Paul Manning have been running the finance department since mid-October.
Days earlier it emerged that a finance department report over-estimated by almost £40m the amount the council would have to slash from their budget over the next three years.
An investigation by the council’s external auditors PWC blamed an “erroneous spreadsheet entry” and “misunderstandings” for the blunder.
It came to light just weeks after the Advertiser revealed how the council lost £102,000 to African conmen.
The fraud occurred when a finance department official fell for a bogus bank details scam."
With so many low paid workers in South Lanarkshire Council still fighting for equal pay - isn't it interesting to note that public money is in such plentiful supply - when it comes to senior council officials.
"Director of under-fire finance department on 'gardening leave' for two months"
"The boss of South Lanarkshire Council’s beleaguered finance department has been on PAID ‘gardening leave’ since October, the Advertiser can reveal.
Linda Hardie earned about £120,000 a year as director of the department who were scammed by African fraudsters and miscalculated by £40m the amount of cuts facing the council.
She is unlikely to be back at her desk before April.
By that time she will be 50 and is due to retire... on full pension.
Insiders say her severance package comprises a lump sum of up to £250,000 and an annual pension estimated at between £30,000 and £50,000 a year.
The council will have to pay part of the package because she is leaving for efficiency reasons before the age at which she would normally access her pension.
Council bosses agreed to enhance her pension – at the expense of Council Tax payers – even though her five-year contract as finance director ends in April.
Council chief executive Archie Strang and head of finance Paul Manning have been running the finance department since mid-October.
Days earlier it emerged that a finance department report over-estimated by almost £40m the amount the council would have to slash from their budget over the next three years.
An investigation by the council’s external auditors PWC blamed an “erroneous spreadsheet entry” and “misunderstandings” for the blunder.
It came to light just weeks after the Advertiser revealed how the council lost £102,000 to African conmen.
The fraud occurred when a finance department official fell for a bogus bank details scam."
