EXCLUSIVE: Susan Aitken said four former officials should follow the example of ex chief executive Annemarie O’Donnell in giving up their packages.
Glasgow City Council, along with some other local authorities in Scotland, offers the option to pay council tax in either 10 or 12 monthly instalments.(Image: Getty Images)
Glasgow council leader Susan Aitken has demanded the former bosses who walked away with lavish golden goodbyes hand back the money.
Aitken claimed she was “personally lied to” after being kept in the dark over the £1m exit deals.
The Record revealed last year that former council chief executive Annemarie O’Donnell and four colleagues left with huge early retirement packages.
Official accounts show O’Donnell received £357,845 for her pension, while ex legal director Elaine Galletly enjoyed a £223,065 pension boost and £59,971 for “compensation for loss of office”.
Former council solicitor Carole Forrest, ex HR head Robert Anderson and one-time principal adviser to the CEO Anne Connolly also received deals.
The £1m total spend came during a time of cuts and angered Aitken and her colleagues who were kept out of the loop.
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In an interview with our Planet Holyrood podcast, the SNP council leader said: “I am very angry about it.”
She said: “I wasn’t told about it because the very small number of individuals involved knew that I wouldn’t have approved it, that I wouldn’t have signed it off.”
Aitken said: “It was done covertly. The information was not shared with senior politicians. It absolutely should have been. It was kept from us. That information was withheld.
“I was personally misled and personally lied to about it, or certainly about the situation around it.”
O’Donnell has paid back her early retirement package and Aitken wants the four others to do the same:
“We have retrieved some of that money, I’m very glad to say. We continue to believe that all of the individuals involved should pay [it] back. I think it would be the right thing to do.”
“They should certainly, at the very least, look to their consciences and consider following in the footsteps of the former chief executive, who I think did look to her conscience and decided to pay it back.
“None of them had less than comfortable pensions to begin with. They were all senior officers. They don’t need this extra.”
Susan Aitken. Pic by Victoria Stewart, Reach Plc Staff
In a damning report, auditors said the absence of scrutiny from councillors and formal documents was “deeply concerning”.
Andrew Burns, Deputy Chair of the Accounts Commission said: “The actions taken by a group of senior staff at Glasgow City Council fell short of the values and principles every public sector worker and councillor are expected to follow. There was a failure to address and document how potential conflicts of interest were considered.
“It is alarming to see reports which need to consider the lawfulness of actions within councils, and such circumstances do little to reassure taxpayers about how public money is being used.”
Glasgow Labour councillor George Redmond, who helped expose the payments controversy, said: “This is the biggest scandal I have seen since I have been a councillor. The money spent could have been used for schools, poverty and fixing potholes.”
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