Guernsey Press

States pays £2m. to ex-employees

PAYOUTS to outgoing States employees have cost taxpayers more than £2.17m. in just over five years, it has been revealed.

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PAYOUTS to outgoing States employees have cost taxpayers more than £2.17m. in just over five years, it has been revealed.

Chief Minister Peter Harwood, pictured, has finally released the true cost of financial settlements with ex-employees between January 2008 and May this year, including the latest revelation of more than £1.3m. as a result of redundancies.

It follows persistent requests from St Sampson's deputy Peter Gillson.

The Policy Council initially refused to provide figures. It then provided details of deals to facilitate the exit of 51 employees, totalling £816,908.

However, it emerged that this figure included only compromise agreements with former employees and excluded redundancy deals.

Deputy Harwood has now said that a further £496,095 more was spent on the redundancies of 22 staff. Three of those staff were entitled to immediate payment of pension benefits, so £862,631 more was transferred into the Superannuation Fund.

Added together, this has seen payouts, for a total of 73 former employees, cost the States £2.17m. – an average of just under £30,000 per employee.

Releasing the latest redundancy figures, Deputy Harwood pointed to the savings made as a result of them. @font-face { font-family: "Times New Roman"; }@font-face { font-family: "Fenice BT"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 14pt; font-family: "Fenice BT"; }table.MsoNormalTable { font-size: 10pt; font-family: Courier; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; } 'When considering figures associated with redundancies, it is also important to note that a redundancy does not actually cost the States extra, rather the reduction in staff levels leads to a recurring saving being made,' he said.

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