CLEVELANDS police commissioner has rejected claims that the decision to sack the chief executive of Cleveland Police Authority - a move which cost the force £250,000 - was made on the hoof. Stuart Pudney left his job almost as soon as Barry Coppinger was elected as the Police and Crime Commissioner for Cleveland in November last year. Documents obtained by The Northern Echo reveal that concerns about the decision to sack Mr Pudney and replace him with a former colleague of the police commissioner were outlined in paperwork sent to the Audit Commission, including claims the decision was made on the hoof. However, Mr Coppinger says he has never received a letter of complaint from Mr Pudney and that legal advice was sought before the decision was made to sack him. Other documents include a letter from the outgoing authority chairman Stuart Drummond and his vice chairman at the time, Aslam Hanif, praising the work of the ousted chief executive during a time when the force was dealing with investigations into the conduct of its former Chief Constable Sean Price and his deputy Derek Bonnard. Both were subsequently dismissed for gross misconduct. Mr Coppinger was criticised at the time for taking the decision to appoint Ed Chicken, Middlesbrough Council’s head of community protection, who had worked alongside the former Labour councillor for a number of years. A letter to the Audit Commission listed a number of concerns about the process involved in his appointment, including: “The decision to dismiss the Chief Executive and Monitoring Officer is significant by any measure yet it was clearly taken with little or no information or professional advice and rational/legal justification. This was clearly a decision taken by the PCC on the hoof – perhaps with support from others.” The amount Mr Pudney received, including payments such as two months salary to the end of his contract period and payments for untaken annual leave, was £81,520. Of that, £35,000 was compensation for loss of his £90,000-a-year job. The £250,000 also included a compensation payment of about £160,000 made to his pension fund due to the fact Mr Pudney would be drawing his pension early and employee and employer contributions would no longer be made into the fund. Mr Coppinger has defended his handling of the affair, maintaining the decision was made in an attempt to move the force forward and following legal advice agreed a financial settlement with Mr Pudney. He said: “A letter was received by the external auditor regarding this process, who carried out detailed enquiries. The annual report concluded: You have made proper arrangements to secure economy, efficiency and effectiveness in your use of resources. “We have received no direct complaint or indication from the former Police Authority Chief Executive that he has any concerns about his payments or the process to appoint a successor.” Mr Coppinger has confirmed that Mr Chicken’s year-long secondment has been extended on a three-month rolling contract basis for up to another 12 months.
Posted on: Mon, 25 Nov 2013 23:08:42 +0000
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