Glasgow City Council chief exec 'disappointed' by £1m exit packages approved without scrutiny

The chief executive of Glasgow City Council said she is “disappointed” by a “lack of transparency and honesty” after a probe found five senior staff received exit packages of over £1m without councillors’ knowledge.

Susanne Millar agreed it isn’t “credible” that the officials — including her predecessor Annemarie O’Donnell — wouldn’t have known agreeing early retirement deals without political scrutiny would be controversial.

She added: “My emotional response is to be disappointed, to be let down. I thought I operated in an organisation — I’ve worked in this organisation for 30 plus years — where honesty, transparency and public sector values were valued by officers.

“I am disappointed to learn that might not have been the case.”

Glasgow & West

Early retirement deal for council chief executive not ‘lawfully approved’

Concerns over the payments were raised by the leader of the council Susan Aitken and city treasurer Ricky Bell.

The chief executive was quizzed by angry councillors on Tuesday following the release of an investigation by legal firm Brodies.

It found no evidence of officials acting “improperly”, but that Ms O’Donnell’s exit was not “lawfully approved” in line with council rules.

Douglas Ross KC, who gave his opinion on the findings, said the whole process “gave rise to an appearance of conflict of interest” and it was “surprising that none of the senior officers involved seems to have recognised it”.

He went on to state there was nothing in Brodies’ report to lead him to think any criminal offence was committed. No evidence to show councillors knew about the exit packages prior to July 2024 was found.

The investigation related to the exits of five senior officials: Carole Forrest, solicitor to the council and director of governance; Anne Connolly, principal adviser to the chief executive; Robert Anderson, head of HR; Elaine Galletly, head of legal and administration and Annemarie O’Donnell, chief executive.

Details of the planned senior management “restructure” had been contained in a report by Mr Anderson, which was sent to the chief executive in 2021.

Brodies’ probe found severance terms were “in accordance” with council policies, but there wasn’t proper justification for the early retirement of the former chief executive in the restructure report.

Ms Millar said the “legally privileged” report had been published due to “the scale of public interest” and the council’s response would be “really important to restoring public and staff confidence”.

“I’m committed as your chief exec to setting a culture of honesty and transparency,” she added.

At an audit and scrutiny meeting, Cllr Greg Hepburn, SNP, said: “Like everyone else in the city, I was dismayed and angered to learn about this. Hundreds of thousands of pounds out of the coffers and not so much as a whisper.”

He said the officials had 140 years of combined service, seeing “everything from the mundane to the great controversies”, adding: “Is it credible that no one would think this would be something that would be politically controversial? That they wouldn’t think to take it to committee?

“It’s not something that would have passed a committee, I feel confident in saying. It leaves a poor taste in my mouth and I find it difficult to believe.”

He also asked about the possibility of recovering some of the money.

Ms Millar said: “I don’t find it credible. I need to be quite clear about that, I don’t find that credible.”

She said the Brodies report was “clear that is not credible”, adding: “Both Brodies and the KC have found, without being officers of the council for a long number of years, that it was obvious that political oversight should have been sought.”

She said she appreciated the desire to recover the funds, but the lawyers had been “really clear on the limitations of such action”.

Cllr Bill Butler, Labour, asked for Ms Millar’s view on the situation she had inherited. The chief executive said the “excellent” report from Brodies gave “a really clear direction of travel” to improve transparency.

She added: The emotional response is one where I am disappointed in the lack of transparency and honesty.”

Ms Millar also said the early retirement deals weren’t “common knowledge in the corporate management team, of that I am absolutely certain and have clear evidence”.

She pledged to put in place processes to ensure any future restructure will “go through due process and will have political oversight”.

Brodies also said councillors should have had a say on the restructure report, particularly as the officials “who were involved in approving it also benefited from its terms”.

There was no finding that the restructure report was “approved unlawfully because doing so was within the delegated authority of the chief executive and solicitor to the council/director of governance”.

Bailie Jim Kavanagh, Labour, said: “We are here to run this city for the best intentions of this city, not for people to walk away with financial sums that people could only dream of.

“There are people out there on the streets, poverty-stricken beyond belief. People’s opinions of this council are at rock bottom, and we as councillors are taking the flack for it.

“We didn’t know anything. Nobody told us anything. We never knew at any stage what was happening.”