Shropshire Council in £155,000 pay-off to finance chief
Tuesday 4th October 2011, 11:45AM BST.
A former Shropshire Council finance chief who quit last year amid a shake-up of Shirehall senior management had a pay-off of more than £155,000, it has been revealed.
An online version of the authority’s Statement of Accounts for 2010/11 shows that Laura Rowley, an ex-director of resources, received a ‘standard redundancy payment’ of £155,831 in accordance with the council’s policy.
But the figure has been omitted from the bound copies of the accounts, which went to full council last month.
Mrs Rowley quit her high-paid job in September last year. She did not comment publicly but was understood to have been unhappy over plans for major cuts among senior managers.
Mrs Rowley joined the former Shropshire County Council in September 2000 after nine years as assistant director of finance at Birmingham City Council. She was responsible for all of Shirehall’s financial services and administrator of the Shropshire County Pension Fund – one of the largest UK authority pension funds.
Mrs Rowley was not available for comment today.
Simon Alton, spokesman for Shropshire Council, said the reference to a redundancy payment was not included in the Statement of Accounts because they were waiting for advice from the Audit Commission.
He added: “Subsequently, it was clarified that the redundancy figure should be included, so the final public version which was uploaded to our website on Friday had the figure included.”
Most Commented
- Shropshire Council will face £8m redundancy bill
- Clampdown on Shrewsbury chuggers
- Bishop's gay marriage views do nothing to support bible teachings
- Letter: Alcohol price plans annoy me
- Planners ordered to stay on Newport visit bus
- Letter: Angered by close encounter of the furred kind
- Letter: No sense in overseas job adverts
Shropshire Star on Twitter
Keep updated with the latest breaking news and content on our Twitter feed.
Lifestyle
Interactive Dining Out map
Hundreds of reviews by the Shropshire Star and Express & Star's teams to help you decide where to eat.
Entertainment
All the film reviews
Before you plan a trip to the pictures, get our critics' verdicts on all the latest movie releases.
OUR NEW APP
Get the new Shropshire Star app
Download the Shropshire Star’s new app to your iPad or iPhone to get one week of access to our digital newspapers absolutely FREE.
shropshirestar.com
Popular sections
Useful links
why are we always been told we are all going to suffer, we are all going to make cut-backs, we are all in this together. Obviously the hierarchy in the council are not in this together, this can be seen the way they are treating their staff. Surely this is so wrong morally, are they not embarrassed by this!!!!! Their policy should be changed, the rest of us normal workers can get about £8000 max.
Report abuse
disgusting.
Report abuse
I know Kevin. Hopefully, she wont have to scrape by at Christmas time like most of us will have to. What a sigh of relief…..
Report abuse
While I’m sure it was all above board and contractually and legally sound, it beggars belief that these lucrative termination conditions are allowed to be written into their contracts in the first place.
Report abuse
how about changing the contracts of these higher paid, all the other staff had their contracts changed. Now if the workers all walked out because of this, i think they will then get lots more support. This is up there with fiddling expenses.
Report abuse
The council are a joke –
- constant blunders
- wasting money
- idotic ideas
Can somebody please take control??
Report abuse
here here these councils are run by unelected,incompetent people who would be unemployable in the private sector
Report abuse
That’s right because the private sector never has any failures, businesses going bust, fraud, safety disasters etc.
Report abuse
Financial realities are only for the little people.
Report abuse
One of the alternatives to the cuts is ‘cut out the waste’. This sort of waste.
Report abuse
I’d like to see the figures on redundancy payouts verses the 7 million pound saving the staff cuts at lower level will generate. The chiefs will no doubt put some spin on it saying long term efficiency savings will be greater but after working in an organisation like this I very much doubt it.
Report abuse
that would have paid for about ten real jobs for a year
Report abuse
Get over it.
She was contractually entitled to it – if redundancies are made then it will cost.
Shame the Tories can’t understand this.
Report abuse
WHY ? Why should an employer pay anything if he decides he does not want an employee any longer.
.
USA style hire and fire is what is needed.
People should not expect money for nothing but alas it is the culture in the uk today from a benefit scrounger to over the top redundancies paid for by the tax payer at the end of the day.
Report abuse
Why what?
If a contract says something then it has to be adhered to. Surely your preferred model of private sector plays by that premise. Otherwise there’d be anarchy in business.
Private sector employers offer employment contracts. Some are more generous as regards redundancy than public sector some aren’t. I know two company directors who sadly have lost their jobs in the last year. Each got a very good payment.
You may want to disregard the rule of law…most of us want to live in a structured society where obligations are honoured.
Report abuse
Do try and keep up.
She wasn’t made redundant.
Report abuse
Money for nothing – outrageous.
Let’s ban the lottery too and while we’re at it confiscate income from shares and investments. And as for inheritance – BAN IT!!!!!
Report abuse
Heck of a contract that gives you redundancy when you leave of your own accord. She wasn’t actually made redundant, she walked out.
Report abuse
Surely if she quit she should not be entitled to anything.
Report abuse
obscene.
Report abuse
As someone who has applied for a number of positions within this council, I was disheartened, but not entirely shocked, when I lost out to internal applicants at the very final selections. It would be nice to think that nepotism is not rife in a government organisation that is supposedly beyond reproach! However, my experience tells me that these people look after their own and the higher up you go the greater the “nest feathering”! I will readily admit that I was lured by the benefits and salaries which seem to far outweigh those found in the private sector. I assume the workload is proportionately higher!
Report abuse
what private sector workers do in a day the public sector take a week. Extremely cushy, over paid (for what they do ) and benefits to die for.It always will be until it is run like a private buisness. Look at BT before privatisation about 250,000 staff. They are now down to less than 100,000. And more importantly we can choose if to use them or not
Report abuse
Oh Darel, when are you and your kind going to grow up? Please share with us the evidence you’ve so diligently researched to back up your claims.
What are the benefits to die for? Please list them all for me and I’ll gladly confirm for you which (if any) are true.
I would dearly love to see you in my job; then and only then will you be qualified to decide whether or not I have it “extremely cushy”.
You seriously want me to look at BT? I’d rather not thanks all the same. I transferred my calls and broadband to them earlier this year and the whole process has been nothing short of a disaster.
So how about it Darel? Will you let us all know how you’ve reached your conclusions/assumptions please?
Report abuse
Mark, I have a friend who works for this authority. I myself work for a large multinational company. We have both served a similar number of years with our respective employers. However my friend commands a higher salary, works fewer hours a week, has more annual days leave than myself and, from what I have been given to understand, will enjoy a significantly higher pension on retirement.
I am, in fact, quite content with my own job. Yet I should point out as someone “on the outside looking in” it seems that the council staff are extremely well served by their employers.
I would also like to say that I believe the vast majority of council personnel work extremely hard and have done so even more in the wake of recent cuts. The general public have more of an issue with the “fat cat” image of many local government upper management. Unfortunately, this story has done nothing to dispell that!
Report abuse
Oh Mark, surely with this condescending attitude and your position within the authority, believes me to think that you are somewhat educated to a reasonable standard. Therefore if someone states criteria for debate, would it not be prudent to research facts that will allow you to dispute said criteria.
I don’t mean to be condescending myself and I know most of the authority’s employees do a good job. However with this obscene amount of cash written into contracts, its not the tax payer that is consulted of its content, or even made aware of for that matter.
I’m sorry but when it comes to accountability of the peoples money, this type of settlement is going to anger the most gentile of people.
Report abuse
In response to Joseph.
But what may apply in your friend’s case Joseph does not apply across the whole spectrum, and that’s the problem with these threads. Many look on with misguided jealousy, having apparently based their opinions on a friend who works for the councils, or more often, poor and biased media reports.
You highlight the difference between yourself and your friend which is fair enough – I have no issue with that. For me it went the other way – I moved from private to public sector just over ten years ago through redundancy and took a significant pay hit. So much so that I had to take up additional employment to meet my outgoings. In fact, to this day, I still have that second job which incidentally, is in the private sector.
The question of pensions always arises in these threads. Again, don’t believe all you read or hear. Lord Hutton in his enquiry acknowledged that the vast majority would amount to around £7000 p.a. not exactly the gold plated pensions so frequently mentioned in support of anti public sector comment. In addition to my wages reduction, I pay a far higher pension contribution each month than I ever did in the private sector.
The fat cat images as highlighted in this story is one which I fully understand. Trust me, these kinds of instances stick in the throats of the ordinary workers just as they do with outsiders “looking in”. But it’s wrong to tar each and every public sector worker with the same brush because of stories like this – unfortunately, many seem to take pleasure in doing so regardless of whether or not their “observations” are based on fact. In fact, may rely on hearsay and absolute lies to further their anti public sector vitriol; that however is not directed at yourself Joseph.
p.s. I should point out that my original comment appears to have been edited for some reason
Report abuse
Unfortunately, grew up a long time ago. The evidence is with a few friends who admit to having very cushy jobs, 6 weeks paid holiday plus all the bank holidays,even time off for the queens birthday and mournday thursday. Not exactly in line with what the rest of us have to endure. My point is , we are having our noses rubbed into this fact with collosal wages and pay offs when we are all suffering. It should be stopped immediately.As for BT, change your supplier, unfortunately we cannot change our council. My emails are also stopped/changed.
Report abuse
add this to the i pad fiasco, the management suite, the 100% increase in councillors pay, the invites to sports events and corporate hospitality of the flower show, the top class hotel stays, the concrete slinky by the river, the icelandski banksi loss, the 6.5 m on council managers redundancies, the cheif executive paid more salary that the PM gets and you start to get a picture of a council without a grip on its spending who are cutting schools and cleaners pay whilst the rich get richer and the upper echelons continue to profit from public services
Report abuse
Sickening
Report abuse
Who’s going to make a request under the Freedom of Information Act for all other “leaving presents” in excess of, say, £100k since the start of the Unitary Authority. And early retirements on favourable terms.
I bet there was a “clear-out” after the new Administration took over – at our expense.
Report abuse
‘If a contract says something then it has to be adhered to’ says port hill boy
What about the staff who were forced to take a pay cut or be made redundant??
Report abuse
Do try and keep up.
Those contracts were terminated.
Report abuse
this is absolutely disgusting a real kick in the teeth to workers facing redundancy, pay cuts and dismissal
I am sick to death of conservative governance already, we need a military coup detat now if the army wont help us then I think its time for a general strike either than or armed resistance to this government
Report abuse
absolutely f in disgraceful
Report abuse
“Standard redundancy”? When I retire, I will be lucky to get a eigth of that and 9k a year! Disgusting fat cat payout!
Report abuse
If the public sector workers want support from everyone else then this is the type of thing they need to be walking out over. not pensions and paycuts..
I wonder if she was a union member..
Report abuse
In response to Joseph and BamBam.
My earlier attempt to respond to Joseph seems to have fallen foul of the moderators for whatever reason. Why? I have no idea as there was nothing rude, abusive or controversial contained within.
Likewise, my orignal answer to Darel was also edited; again I have no idea why.
Anyway, my missing response did clearly acknowledge that this type of story sticks in the throat of outsiders looking in. Trust me, it sticks in the throats of those of us who work in public sector too.
I pointed out that posters shouldn’t base their opinion of all public sector employees solely on the content of selective or biased media reporting. I also stated that the wages issue mentioned by Joseph worked in reverse for me when I moved from private to public sector employment some ten years ago, following redundancy. So much so, that it was necessary for me to take on secondary employment to maintain my financial outgoings.
I have no issue with Joseph’s observations, in fact he’s posted an intelligent levelled response there unlike many who base their opinions on hearsay, lies and media bias.
BamBam: maybe I’m not as reasonably educated as you think as I’m afraid you’ve lost me with the first part of your reply. I can’t see how my response shows a condescending attitude, nor can I work out which facts I’m supposed to reasearch to dispute said criteria. The people who need to research facts are those who post ill informed mistruths without actually having much of an idea of truth – hence my earlier comment. That is not directed at the comments made by Joseph and yourself incidentally.
Perhaps you would clarify for me which facts I need to research and I’ll happily get back to you.
Moderators: are you going to allow me to respond or at least tell me which part of my comment you don’t like?
Report abuse