Council staff in Norfolk and Suffolk who have been made redundant have been paid off to the tune of £13 million in just over a year, a Freedom of Information request has revealed. 

The largest payment for one employee was a member of school staff who received more than £40,000.

The Eastern Daily Press report:

As local authorities brace themselves for further cuts and savings next year, a Freedom Of Information request has revealed the bill for the 1,243 local authority and police staff who were made voluntarily or compulsorily redundant between April last year and March this year.

At Norfolk County Council, where the authority is in the midst of a £135m savings drive sparked by a consultation process called The Big Conversation, 645 members of staff were made redundant, which cost the authority just under £6.1m in payments.

West Norfolk Council made 19 people redundant and paid them a total of just under half a million pounds

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I am a journalist and author. I am a journalist at the UK edition of WIRED magazine. In 2015, my first book Freedom of Information: A Practical Guide for UK Journalists, was published. My second book Reed Hastings: Building Netflix, was published in March 2020. I created FOI Directory in 2012 and have maintained it in my spare time ever since.