Council Chief At Centre Of Pay-Off Row Resigns

A Lothian council chief who helped award himself a £304,000 pay-off has resigned, it was announced today. John Lindsay, 60, will receive retirement and legal entitlements but will not get any redundancy pay, East Lothian Council said.

The move follows a controversy that began in February when the council agreed to award Mr Lindsay a one-off redundancy payment of £149,000 and retirement lump-sum of £155,000 on top of his pension of £55,000 a year.

That move came as part of a restructuring which merged his department with another, reducing the number of director-level jobs from five to four. After the controversy erupted Mr Lindsay said he was no longer volunteering to be made redundant.

The deal was criticised in a report by the Accounts Commission spending watchdog, which said the process by which the council made its decision “fell a long way short of the standards expected of public bodies”.

At the time of the deal the council was Labour-controlled, but since the May election it has been controlled by an SNP-Liberal Democrat coalition.

February’s decision to make a redundancy payment to Mr Lindsay was overturned by a meeting of the council yesterday, a council spokesman said. That meeting also voted to accept a legal report which said that any redundancy payment in Mr Lindsay’s case would be unlawful.

Seven Labour councillors said they were unhappy with parts of this report and called for a decision to be deferred, said the spokesman. But after they left the meeting the decision to rescind the deal won majority backing. The spokesman said Mr Lindsay had proposed to leave his job at the end of July, and was currently on “gardening leave”.

“Now that he has tendered his resignation and this has been accepted by the council, he will retire on Sept. 30,” he said. “The council’s disciplinary investigation into the matter of his redundancy payment will proceed no further.” He said Mr Lindsay would receive the retirement payments which the council and pension fund was legally obliged to pay, but would receive no redundancy or ex gratia payment.

Council leader David Berry said: “The new council has demonstrated that it is acting fairly and responsibly and in the best interests of East Lothian’s residents.” He thanked Mr Lindsay for his service to the area.

Mr Lindsay said: “Over the 23 years that I have been working in the community, many people have told me about improvements that have taken place throughout the county, and I am proud of my contribution to that.”