Glasgow, Fat Cats and Public Watchdogs
Back in 2018 I wrote to Audit Scotland, Scotland's public spending watchdog, about a ludicrous 'golden goodbye' payment to a senior member of staff at Glasgow City Council (GCC).
I was shocked at the size of this payment (£130,000) and at the lack of oversight from the council's elected members who have the job of holding senior officials to account.
Audit Scotland wrote back to say GCC's governance arrangements were just 'tickety boo', but fast forward 6 years to 2024 and whole batch of senior officials depart under even more controversial circumstances - leaving council taxpayers with a £1 million+ bill.
Now GCC's governance arrangements remained the same, ie unchanged, between 2018 and 2024, but the public watchdog has now given Glasgow and other Scottish councils a well deserved boot up the arse.
"Where decisions around restructuring and exit packages are being taken, councils must ensure there is clear evidence of effective governance, independent scrutiny, and value for money, as well as robust and transparent record keeping."
I have submitted a complaint to the Auditor General, Stephen Boyle, because someone ought to get to the bottom of what went on here:
a) were Glasgow's internal and external auditors asleep on the job?
b) how were so many senior officials in Glasgow all allowed to leave at the same time, with hugely expensive 'golden goodbyes' - yet elected council leaders claim not to know what was happening under their watch?
My letter to Audit Scotland is reproduced below - if you would like to read all the enclosures, drop me an email and I'll forward them on.
Stephen Boyle
Scotland's Auditor General
Dear Stephen Boyle
Glasgow Golden Goodbye Scandals and Audit Scotland
1) I refer to my letter dated 16 December 2024 and would like to raise the following issues with Audit Scotland (see Enclosure 1)
Glasgow City Council 2018 - former director of finance
2) In August 2018 I wrote to Audit Scotland regarding a 'golden goodbye' payment made to Glasgow City Council's (GCC) former director of finance, Lynn Brown - my concerns focused on the council's governance arrangements and the lack of oversight from its elected members.
3) Earlier in 2018 I wrote to GCC's director of governance, Carole Forrest, challenging the circumstances surrounding this extraordinary payment to the former director of finance, Lynn Brown (see Enclosure 2).
4) The decision was made by the council's new chief executive, Annemarie O'Donnell, but was the opposite of open and transparent. I had to fight an FOI battle with GCC in order to discover what had happened which was that Lynn Brown was effectively made a gift around £130,000 of council taxpayers' money so she could access her pension early - without incurring the normal financial penalty.
5) GCC argued, at the time, that Annemarie O'Donnell (AOD) was entitled to make such a decision under a GCC Scheme of Delegation which was true, but only in a very narrow sense, because no business case to justify AOD's decision was ever put forward and the CEO had no authority to use £130,000 of public money to sweeten a deal for Lynn Brown to leave GCC's employment early with an additional financial incentives beyond her contractual entitlement.
6) Interestingly, only months earlier Lynn Brown had applied to become the chief executive of Glasgow City Council, but lost out to Annemarie O'Donnell who went on to sanction this hugely generous exit payment without approval from the council's elected members
7) Audit Scotland advised me at the time that its auditors had no major concerns about Glasgow City Council's governance arrangements beyond some passing comments about 'tightening up' the paperwork (see Enclosure 3).
Glasgow City Council 2024 - the senior management teams departs en masse
8) Fast forward to 2024 and the same thing happened all over again when most of the Senior Management Team at GCC devised a plan to leave the council's employment all at the same time - en masse. Included in this plan were the chief executive (as Head of the Paid Service), director of governance and head of human resources - which is truly astonishing.
9) Significantly, GCC's Scheme of Delegation and governance arrangements which (unlike the council's internal and external auditors) I had challenged in 2018 remained the same - and had not changed in 2024.
10) Annemarie O'Donnell went on to sign off hugely generous exit packages for members of her senior management team colleagues in excess of £1million which included a highly questionable redundancy payment of £95,000 for Carole Forrest (who was leaving her job voluntarily) while the CEO awarded herself an eye-watering golden goodbye of £358,000.
11) Cllr Susan Aitken, leader of the council, is on record saying that she was 'kept in the dark' about this unprecedented mass exodus of her most senior officials while the council's chief executive is on record as saying that she kept senior council leaders properly informed as to what was happening and why.
12) What beggars belief is that no proper records have emerged, so far at least, to explain exactly what what communications took place between senior council officials and the council's elected members. During my time as Unison's Head of Local Government in Scotland and as Joint Secretary of CoSLA's bargaining machinery, I dealt with all of the most senior officials and elected members in Scottish local government - but I never witnessed anything quite as bad as Glasgow's golden goodbye scandal.
Accounts Commission - Senior officer exit packages
13) The Accounts Commission has since conducted a special report into GCC's exit packages, but the Scotland's watchdog over council spending 'got on the case' only after the story had broken in the press and media - extracts of its report are reproduced below:
"The processes, decisions and actions that enabled five senior Glasgow City Council officers to take significant early retirement and redundancy payouts fell short of the behaviour and standards expected of public servants.
"We consider that the restructuring package was dealt with in a manner inconsistent with the Key Principles of Public Life in Scotland, in particular selflessness, integrity and objectivity. The Restructure Report appears to have been approved by some individuals who then benefitted from its proposals. This exhibits a failure to address and document potential conflicts of interest (that should have been obvious to such senior and experienced officers) and displays a lack of judgement in relation to how their actions adhered to the principles.
"Given the seniority of the officers associated with these exit packages, our clear view is that a full report should have been presented to the relevant committee for approval. Within the Scheme of Delegation used during this period, consideration of whether to involve elected members was a ‘judgement call’ by officers based on whether an issue could be considered politically controversial. Given the significance of the post of chief executive, linking it to efficiency savings should have been subject to independent scrutiny. Had elected members been involved at key stages, their scrutiny could have mitigated some of the justified criticisms around perceived conflicts of interest."
"Where decisions around restructuring and exit packages are being taken, councils must ensure there is clear evidence of effective governance, independent scrutiny, and robust and transparent record keeping."
15) I agree with the Accounts Commission and you will see from the attached enclosures that this is exactly what I was saying publicly (via my blog) and in correspondence to the elected members of Glasgow City Council along with the city's MSPs and MPs.
Glasgow City Council 2018 - former director of development and regeneration
16) In 2018 I also wrote extensively on my blog regarding the foreign trips and expenses claims made by the council's director of development and regeneration, Richard Brown - these issues were publicly reported in the Sunday Herald and must have been known to GCC's internal and external auditors.
18) Mr Brown and his deputy went on extended sick leave when these issues became public knowledge and as far as I know they both subsequently resigned their employment with GCC, but without a golden goodbye payment or the benefit of an enhanced exit package (see Enclosure 4).
Summary and conclusion
16) In the circumstances, I believe it is necessary to make a formal complaint about Audit Scotland's handling of these issues so that they can be properly investigated.
17) In my view, the people responsible - council officials and/or elected councillors - should all be held to account for failing to protect the public interest and for falling so far below the key standards of public life.
18) Please consider this letter as a formal complaint to Audit Scotland.
17) I am sharing my letter with the Accounts Commission, Glasgow councillors, Glasgow MSPs and Glasgow MPs - the composition of which has changed since 2018 of course.
18) I also believe there is a case for making a complaint to the Standards Commission for Scotland over the handling of these matters by Glasgow City Council's elected councillors.
Kind regards
Mark Irvine
Enclosures x 4 sets plus a link to Mark Irvine's blog
