10:00am Saturday 4th September 2010
BLACKBURN with Darwen bosses have come under fire for refusing to reveal the pay-off given to a £130,000-a-year chief executive who departed as part of a ‘cost-saving’ drive.
Judith Griffin left her post in charge of the borough’s Primary Care Trust when it merged its management with Blackburn with Darwen Council in July.
It is claimed the move will save up to £2million, with dozens of managers to be made redundant as they compete for fewer jobs.
But now the two organisations have been criticised after refusing a request under the Freedom of Information Act for the amount of money given to Ms Griffin, who lost out to council chief executive Graham Burgess for the top job.
The trust claimed that to disclose the payment would breach the Data Protection Act, despite it having to publish the salaries of its high-earning staff in its annual accounts.
Coun Maureen Bateson, deputy leader of the council’s opposition Labour group, said: “I am not aware of the figure but I’m told it is considerable.
“I think the public needs to know what their money is being spent on.”
The council claimed that the standard NHS terms and conditions would produce a ‘misleading’ figure, but refused to confirm why this was.
However, a spokesman for the NHS Employers organisation, which represents health trusts on workforce issues, confirmed: “The NHS redundancy provisions allow for one month’s pay per year of continuous service, with a maximum of 24 months’ pay.
"This is the same whether someone is a nurse, doctor or senior manager.”
This would see Ms Griffin in line for a payment of more than £250,000, which would be on top of a pension awarded as a £150,000 lump sum followed by around £50,000 a year..
Tory council leader Michael Lee said: “There are strict legal restrictions which prevent details of redundancy arrangements from being disclosed.
"Any crude calculation made using the NHS national terms and conditions would result in a highly-inflated and misleading figure.
"The cost of this redundancy is met by the national NHS and has no effect on the savings for council taxpayers we will make from the management merger.”
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