A long-serving housing boss has been promoted after a £240,000 pay-off was made to his predecessor at Brighton and Hove City Council.
Martin Reid steps up to become assistant director of housing, having served as head of housing strategy for more than 10 years.
Mr Reid will continue to oversee housing strategy as part of his new role.
The assistant director post was deleted just over a year ago, in January 2018, as part of a management shake-up at the council.
It led to the departure of the previous £88,000-a-year assistant director of housing Tracy John, who joined the council in September 2015 from Norwich City Council.
She was given a £240,000 redundancy and early retirement package from Brighton and Hove City Council made up of three amounts.
These were £20,000 in redundancy pay, an “additional compensation payment” of £60,000 and £159,000 in pension benefits.
The pension was accounted for last year even though the money would not necessarily be paid out at the time. The pension and redundancy payments reflected a career in local government lasting more than 30 years, although most of it was spent working elsewhere.
Since Ms John’s departure, councillors have voted to bring “responsive repairs” and “empty property services” in-house.
The work is currently carried out by Mears as part of a wider 10-year contract which ends next year.
In preparation for the changes the management structure has once again been revamped, giving rise to the need for a new assistant director of housing.
Mr Reid has been promoted “on a temporary basis” until April next year.
Ms John’s departure was one of 98 from the council where “termination benefits” were paid, totalling £1.6 million, in the 2017-18 financial year.
The figures for the previous year were 202 departures costing £3.5 million.
In 2017-18 there was one other six-figure exit, which cost the council £150,000.
Ms John’s “exit package” is believed to have been the highest since former £160,000-a-year council chief executive Penny Thompson left in June 2015.
The cost of Ms Thompson’s departure was £270,000, including pay to cover her notice period, pension and compensation.
Just like Ex CEO Penny Thomson who took early retirement and then went back to work.There are some 65 year olds who probably didnt earn that in 50 years.
What are we doing about if indeed this is accurate reporting.
An absolute disgrace, this must be why our council tax rises every year with no noticeable improvement to services.
This is why we have no money & need to increase council tax, have capped housing benefit so far below actual rents & council staff get stupidly low pay rises that don’t even cover inflation rates. Rich cats getting all the cream