Gov spent £1.35m on exit payments last year

Friday 15 April 2022

23 Government employees received a total of £1.35m in exit payments in 2021 – including the half-a-million ‘golden handshake’ given to former CEO Charlie Parker to avert legal action over his early departure.

The amount paid out in 2021 is just above what the Government paid in 2020, £1,29m, according to the Government's Annual Report and Accounts in 2021.

Excluding the £500,000 compromise agreement sum the former Government CEO, received, the average payment in 2021 was of £38,721.

This was slightly higher than the previous year, when the 34 beneficiaries received an average payment of £37,726.

Mr Parker's 'loss of office compensation' followed fall-out over his second job as a Non-Executive Director at UK real estate firm New River, which led to him stepping down.

The Chief Minister, Senator John Le Fondré, said this payment was necessary to avert any legal action against the Government.

Pictured: Mr Parker's exit payment is not included in the table above but was declared elsewhere in the report.

The majority of the payments in 2021 (14), are listed as “other reasons”, which include conciliation payments, notice and contractual annual leave payment.

Meanwhile, three totalling £352,100 are described as compulsory or voluntary redundancy and five totalling £304,856 as loss of office.

The latest Government Accounts also revealed that 129 employees applied for the Voluntary Release Scheme, which re-opened for applications between 20 September and 26 November 2021.  

The applications were reviewed by line-managers and 22 business cases submitted for formal consideration.

Those were then reviewed by Treasury and Exchequer, and 17 have so far been approved with the settlement agreements currently being prepared.

The Government estimates the cost of the initiative will be around £1m with recurrent annual savings to amount to slightly under £1m.