Town hall bosses have spent more than £500,000 of public money on agreements with former staff to end disputes and avoid legal action in the past two years, The Gazette can reveal.

Since 2012, at least 43 compromise agreements have been signed by former Blackpool Council employees as part of a deal struck when they left the authority.

In the last financial year, 35 such deals – which the council says include confidentiality agreements as standard – were signed following employment disputes, at a cost of £330,000. In 2012/13, £188,000 was spent on 18 of the agreements.

Reported by the Blackpool Gazette. You can read the full story here. 

Matthew Burgess
http://www.mattburgess.co
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.