A total of 13 government staff have been handed payouts in 2020 – at an average of nearly £58,000. The same freedom of information request revealed that 60 public-sector workers had received payouts since the start of 2017 – at a cost of more than £2 million. This includes 14 in 2019 being paid an average of £22,055, 27 were paid an average of £28,590 in 2018 and six employees were paid an average of £35,588 in 2017.
The figures also showed that most [15] of those receiving payouts were earning between £30,000 and £40,000 and that five employees who collected money were earning between £100,000 and £200,000.
Reasons for the payouts included compulsory redundancy, dismissal, resignation, retirement and not completing a probation period.
Deputy Mike Higgins said he had taken issue with the payments, which he said often formed part of compromise agreements, and confirmed he was due to lodge a proposition designed to tackle such awards.
‘To be honest, the system is broken. No one in the Island has any confidence in the compromise agreements that the States have been making with ex-employees,’ he said.
‘To be fair, some are made on fair grounds but others are made on very dubious grounds and, when non-disclosure agreements are made, it stops people from getting to the truth.
‘These things are a sick joke that are not fair on the taxpayer and things need to change. I now have a proposition approved by the Bailiff and will shortly be going to the States.’
Deputy Higgins’s comments come following confirmation that former prison governor Nick Cameron resigned. His departure followed a long period of absence, with questions on his whereabouts going unanswered by the government for some time.
A response to a freedom of information request later revealed that Mr Cameron had sent emails to Justice and Home Affairs Director General Julian Blazeby pleading for personal protective equipment at HMP La Moye in the months leading up to his departure.
On 12 August, around a month-and-a-half after the media first began asking the government whether he had left his post, it was revealed that he had taken a ‘personal decision to leave his post and return to the UK by the end of the year’.
However, it was never revealed whether he had taken a payout as part of his resignation.
In 2012, the then Chief Minister, Senator Ian Gorst, revealed that former States chief executive Bill Ogley had received a payment of £546,337.50 as part of a ‘golden handshake’ for leaving his job during the previous year.
It followed a long campaign by the JEP aimed at forcing the government to reveal the figure, after requests – including one made under the freedom of information law – were denied.
Other payouts include an award made to former Health Department chief Mike Pollard, who was paid about £300,000 when he quit in 2009, Treasurer Laura Rowley who received £170,000 after resigning in 2014 and, most recently, former Economic Development chief officer Mike King, who received around £70,000 when he left his role. The payment was described as ‘pay in lieu of his contractual six-month notice period’.
