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<p>The Department does not collate or hold this information. Local authorities are
independent employers and it is for each council to make local, accountable decisions
on the management of its workforce, including any payment made to staff leaving their
employment. While Government has no involvement in these local decisions, we expect
councils to be open and transparent about the decisions they make about the pay and
rewards for staff, particularly senior staff. Under the Localism Act 2011, councils
are required to prepare and publish an annual pay policy statement setting out their
approach to pay matters, particularly senior pay. In our pay accountability guidance
to accompany measures in the Localism Act, councils are asked to give full council
the opportunity to vote on severance packages of £100,000 or more before they are
rubber-stamped. It is unacceptable for information about compensation payments to
be withheld from local taxpayers and we welcome the CLG Select Committee’s recent
comments that councils should publish the rationale for, and amount of, any financial
payment to a departing chief officer within a month of the decision so that the public
can understand why such a payment has been made. Severance payments made to senior
staff must already be disclosed in an authority’s annual Statement of Accounts and
cannot be protected from disclosure by confidentiality agreements.<br><br>On 3 October,
the Department further strengthened the public's ability to scrutinise councils by
ensuring that they get the data they deserve through the local government transparency
code. Part of that code is the requirement for councils to publish information on
salaries for employees earning £50,000 or more, alongside a range of other pay and
workforce information.</p>
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