£2.5 million would pay the annual salaries of:
- 5 x grade 4 nurses
- 5 x grade 4 child care officers
- 5 x grade 4 teachers
- 5 x fire fighters
- 5 x grade 4 civil servants
- 5 x grade 4 manual workers
- 5 x grade 4 doctors
- 5 x police sergeants
- 5 x grade 4 air traffic controllers
- 5 x grade 4 hospital chaplains
- 5 x grade 4 prison officers
- 5 x grade 4 youth workers[/breakout]
And a fifth of the total amount was spent paying people off in the last two years – after Chief Minister Ian Gorst pledged to crackdown on the practice.
That promise came after this newspaper helped to expose one of the largest ever pay-offs thought to have been made by the States of Jersey when the government’s former chief executive Bill Ogley received a £546,337.50 ‘golden handshake’ when he left his job in 2011.
Today, Senator Gorst has defended the spending over the five years and said that every case is rigorously scrutinised.
He said that pay-offs are only agreed when they are in the best interests of the States of Jersey.
The figures released to the JEP following a Freedom of Information request show that £556,978 was spent by States departments on eight compromise agreements in 2013 and 2014.
Such agreements are legally binding and include employees being paid off in exchange for agreeing not to take action against their employer in relation to their departure and the reasons for it.
Eleven recipients received a total of £1,420,528 in 2011 and 2012 and seven people took home a total of £540,389 between them in 2009 and 2010.
Although for data protection reasons no details could be released about the identities of the employees who received the pay-offs, the States confirmed that they included a number of civil service and chief officer roles ranging from grade three workers with salaries of £22,000 per year to senior managers and executives earning £100,000 a year plus.
The figures come just weeks after it was revealed that Jersey’s former Harbourmaster received a pay-off when he left his £100,000-a-year job two years ago. Howard Le Cornu left the role in March 2012 following the merger of the Harbour and Airport into the Ports of Jersey.
In 2012 the Island’s then-Comptroller and Auditor General Chris Swinson published his report into compromise agreements, which followed an investigation sparked by Mr Ogley’s departure.
The report revealed that 11 civil servants had received ‘golden handshakes’ worth a total of more than £1.5 million in the previous five years.
Senator Gorst said that report concluded that the States was justified in using compromise agreements ‘if they permit the resolution of a situation that is undermining a department’s performance, at a reasonable cost’.
He added: ‘When exit payments are made they are made in order to fulfil the contractual obligations. All payments are made after rigorous analysis of the individual circumstances. The payments that have been made were deemed to be in the best interests of the States of Jersey.’
He added that the policy on such pay-offs was regularly reviewed and the recommendations from the C&AG’s report, which he said acknowledged that the system was ‘robust and coherent’, had been implemented.
The figures show that Health paid off the highest number of staff over the five years, with eight compromise agreements between 2009 and 2014. The Ports of Jersey, which recently underwent a restructuring, paid off five people in 2011 and 2012 and the Chief Minister’s Department had the third highest total having made payments to four members of staff who were leaving their jobs.
No details were received about the individual amounts received or why they were paid.
However examples of the reasons for the compromise agreements – which typically include payments in respect of notice periods and other contractual obligations and compensation for loss of office – were given. They included employees leaving following a management reorganisation which dramatically changed their terms of employment and a breakdown of relationships ‘to the extent that a swift resolution was necessary to ensure that there is no detrimental effect upon services’.
Some of those who have received pay-offs:
Bill Ogley
FORMER States chief executive Bill Ogley was paid £546,337.50p in a ‘golden handshake’ pay-out for leaving his job in May 2011, it was revealed in 2012
The figure was announced by Chief Minister Ian Gorst, who also vowed to stop huge pay-outs to departing staff in the future.
The Senator’s announcement ended months of speculation about the six-figure pay-out and set him directly against his predecessor, Terry Le Sueur, who refused to reveal the figure, and his own chief officer, John Richardson, who had been fighting the JEP’s requests to get to the facts.
This newspaper has been campaigning for the release of the figures since suspicions of a large pay-off emerged in the autumn.
A request was made by the JEP under the Freedom of Information code, but that was refused. Follow-up questions were also met with a wall of silence – until Senator Gorst revealed the figure.
Mr Ogley, the States’ top earner in 2010 with a combined salary and pension contribution figure of up to £270,000, agreed that the information could be released.
Stephen Izatt
THE former chief executive of the Waterfront Enterprise Board received a pay-out of £170,000 in 2011.
The figure was not originally released because Mr Izatt was not technically a civil servant, as he was employed by a States-owned company run as an independent business.
But after a series of requests from the JEP and a public outcry, the full extent of the civil service pay-outs was made public by the States independent spending watchdog, Comptroller and Auditor General Chris Swinson
Howard Le Cornu
JERSEY’S former Harbourmaster received a pay-off to leave his £100,000-a-year job two years ago, the Chief Minister confirmed in January this year
Senator Ian Gorst said that Howard Le Cornu’s pay-off had been among the compromise agreements identified by the States spending watchdog, the Comptroller and Auditor General, in 2012.
