As at least one reader has according to Wirral Council, an obsessive interest in compromise contracts, so this is for you and the small numbers of people actually interested in the subject.
Item 11 was originally an exempt appendix, but councillors decided not to consider it in exempt session (although it’s still not published on Wirral Council’s website).
Page 56 was blank (so I didn’t scan it in), but here’s page 55 (click for a larger version).
It details the £¼ million paid out by Wirral Council to nine employees in compromise contracts since mid-November. So why did the officers want to keep this page a secret? The covering report contains the line “Compromise Contracts for EVR exercises should remain within the bounds of existing delegated authority and policies.” Reading between the lines does that mean HR could make a whistleblower redundant under the guise of redundancy which would avoid any democratic scrutiny of the compromise contract? Answers in the comments please.
There is actually a large and rapidly growing number of people interested in the subject of compromise agreements; a situation underlined the other day when a Daily Torygraph senior person rang me, then emailed me, then texted me, desperate to talk on the subject.
See also the NHS and events around Mid Staffs and hundreds of newly illegal gagging clauses concealed within compromise agreements – a desperately serious matter – in all the headlines, but dwarfed by a factor of about 10 by the same problem, which has run rampant over the last six years in local government. Wirral weren’t even counting theirs at one time to everyone’s horror. No John, we are all very much interested and keen to shine a light into the dark corners 🙂
Perhaps the journalist’s frustration was because many compromise agreements include gagging clauses. Any organisation in the public sector shouldn’t include gagging clauses in its compromise agreements as it gives people the impression they have something to hide. If Martin Morton hadn’t been gagged, how much years earlier would the public have known what went on?
Even without compromise agreements and gagging clauses, how whistleblowers are treated must have a chilling effect on those employees considering it.