Councillors and finance chiefs have been urged by the Audit Commission to give their views on chief executive pay-offs. The commission moved swiftly after being called in by communities secretary, John Denham, last week to investigate whether councils have robust protection in settlements with departing chief executives. It launched a one-month consultation on whether pay-off rules and conventions adequately protect the interests of council taxpayers. Michael O'Higgins, the commission's chairman, said: ‘We already have information from appointed auditors and from our research on trends in chief executive recruitment and pay, published last year. But to give us the widest evidence from which to draw conclusions, we are now asking for views from the public and interested parties.' It followed a strongly-worded statement in which Mr Denham said he was ‘concerned' at ‘unacceptable' deals where chief executives were ‘allowed to walk off with big pay-offs after falling out with the council's political leadership'. He said: ‘If a chief executive, who has served his or her administration well, yet leaves for no justifiable reasons, it does not mean a council should spend large amounts of taxpayers' money just to move them on to the next council so they can then find a more favoured face.' SOLACE director general, David Clark, responded to the announcement by saying he hoped the investigation would focus on ‘stigmatised' chief executives, who were ‘ousted on the whim of political leadership', and who, consequently, were ‘unable to return to local government'. The SOLACE head added that rules had to be closely studied. Mr Clark said: ‘The rules to protect chief executives, monitoring officers and section 151 officers will need to be strictly examined.'
