Council chief gets mind boggling £365,000 pay-off when he quit job after just 12 months, effectively paid twice by the taxpayer

Dear All

When an ordinary person loses their job, they get what is entitled to them in terms of wages.

They don’t get massive pay outs in the region of £365,000.

£365,000 is what a council boss was given when he quit a job after only a year.

Adam Wilkinson, former chief executive of Derby City Council, received the huge pay out from Kent County Council where he had worked as director of environment and regeneration.

This is how corrupt Britain operates.

He gets a £70,000-a-year job then 12 months later he is down the road with the taxpayers’ cash.

Think of it as nearly £1,000 for every day he worked at the authority.

Some people may call this legalised theft but that is the way the system is set up, to benefit the few at the expense of the many.

The only thing which surprises me is that generally people like Wilkinson stay about for 5 years then bale before the outcome of some report into their management. They disappear off to another council or quango.

His reason for going from Kent was:

“My family weren't happy and it wasn't working out with the commute. I was living in Maidstone during the week and going back to West Yorkshire at the weekend. It was tiring and stressful. The salary was great from the financial perspective and the job was a great challenge, but the work and life balance was not working. Kent were very supportive and didn't think it was sustainable. We agreed that departure was best for me and my family. Contractually, Kent had a responsibility to make me a payment. What I was entitled to on departure was a proportion of my salary and bonus and that's what I was paid.”

Could they have not moved to Kent?

After going he sets up his own consultancy firm, one of his clients was City of York Council, where he took on the role of interim director of neighbourhoods.

It is not what you know but who you know in corrupt Britain.

Now he has taken the job of chief executive of Derby City Council, salary of £160,000.

Although he is now at Derby, this will not be the last port of call for him, he will move elsewhere because that is how the system works, think of it as the continual ‘change’ agenda.

What doesn’t change is the fact that the taxpayers are getting ripped off right across the country.

There should be an end to the bonus culture where we are told we are paying to attract the “best people”.

If that is the case why are many people living in such squalid conditions?

Ravi Subramanian, Unison regional head of local government said:

“At a time when Adam Wilkinson is wielding the axe on council services and terms and conditions for some of our lowest-paid workers, I think they will be angry to hear that it appears senior managers have been acting like the fat cats of the City who got us into this mess.”

The real battle ground that David Cameron and the Lib Dem Coalition must tackle is the Labour shadow government, unelected quangocrats who earn obscene salaries and perks but deliver nothing.

Government needs to adopt more than ‘just say no’, it should be, ‘you’re getting f*ck all’ because this is a message that needs to be driven home!

Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University