A NATIONAL DISGRACE: £1.5 million payoff for 8 parly bosses

This is a national disgrace, a symbol of how far we have fallen short of these high aspirations we had of our new parly only ten years ago.. I re-produce below in full the article in today's Sunday Herald on payoffs to 8 senior parliament staff totalling £1,5 million below. I intend to post much more later, but I already know what is going on.

I worked at the parly fot 7 years, know exactly the set up, who's who's and how they inter-relate - indeed who appointed them, and what they were paid in the first place. So if you are a bemused MSP wanting more info please to contact me.

But you probably won't, as it will beg the question what 129 of you - no, 128, I'll exclude Margo - have been doing for 10 years, other than presiding over one of the worst public sector bodies in Scotland. And you can blame nobody but yourselves. It has been the all-party Scottish Parliamentary Corporate body - one Labou,r one SNP, one Lib Dem and one Tory - that has been in charge from day one. And Sir David Steel, George Reid and now Adam Fegusson - your senior statesmen, the consensual pick of your bunch.

Yet you, all 129 of you, are meant to hold the entire public sector in Scotland to account, but can't even hold your own place of work to account, don't seem to have the slightest clue, are propably reading about these obscene payoffs for the first time in the Sunday Herald.

As a result, in my eyes anyway, you have no credibility demanding efficiencies, even the accountabilty of Scottish Goverment departments , local councils, quangos and the rest of us, as you preside over one of the worst public sector bodies in Scotland. And set up only 10 years ago, by the Convention parties and with belated SNP and Scots Tory buy-in. Nae Maggie T, these English and co to blame for this mess.

And in the name of people of Scotland

But just do any reasonable like for like comparisson with the costs of running Holyrood with any parly in the world - even fully independent ones, and you will see instantly just how inefficient Holyrood is. ( something in my time the senior officials point blank refused to do, indeed they even rubbished an Irish Parliament consultants report that put Holyrood as bottom of their international efficiency league table)

We know what they wasted on that building- we got a disfunctional building worth £150m tops, but paid £450m. But the very same people who mismanaged this, still blow close to £50 million every year, year on year and rising just running the place. Ask how much it costs the Catalans - population 6 million, many more powers than Holyrood, check out a comparable sized Lander in Germany, a US state, or even the Irish Dail.

And our democratic reps don't seem to care - indeed they are in on the act. Did you for example know one of seven Bills currently going through Holyrood is one to improve MSP pensions? A national priority of course in these trying times, these poor put upon impoverished MSPs worried about their future ( well some should be!) . And these new improved pensions all set up by the senior parly staff , who are in turn benefiting from these obsence payoff. Nice wee number, nice cosy arrangement.

Nigel Griffith only screwed one person in the Commons. This mob are screwing 5 million of us every day at Holyrood.

Enough for now, but here's the Sunday Herald article to be getting on with.

Holyrood boss under fire as eight staff share £1.5m pay-off
By Paul Hutcheon

HOLYROOD CHIEF EXECUTIVE PAUL Grice has been criticised after eight senior parliament staff shared an early retirement pot of at least £1.5 million. The deal is worth the equivalent of £190,000 for each of the Holyrood bosses.

The redundancy round was sparked after Grice accepted recommendations from his colleague Carol Devon to cut the number of senior management posts. Devon ended up as the main beneficiary of the plan after her application for redundancy landed her up to £270,000.
Holyrood's head of personnel Ian Macnicol, head of security Bill Anderson and Ian Perry, head of the external liaison unit, all negotiated deals. Patsy Richards, head of the parliament information centre, and three clerk team leaders will also benefit.
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These seven include two employees at grade seven, who earn up to £71,327, and five at grade six, whose salary reaches £58,022. Devon's salary, according to parliament accounts, came in at up to £95,000.

The £1.5m is a combination of lump sums and pension payments. If Devon's sum is taken out of the equation, the seven others stand to benefit from an average gain of £175,000. The Sunday Herald understands one of the seven had a short length of service and is unlikely to have received a large sum.

The payments have led to criticism of Grice, who approved the early retirement applications, although the parliament insists the plans will yield savings. Grice has already been rebuked over his role in the cost overruns surrounding the Holyrood project.

The payments raise further questions about public-sector bodies paying out hundreds of thousands of pounds to senior staff in pay-offs. North Lanarkshire Council has spent almost £2m on early retirement and severance since 2007, while Scottish Enterprise (SE) paid over £20m in lump sums. Within that total, four individuals received severance lump sums of over £250,000.
Glasgow City Council paid almost £19m in similar deals, while NHS Lothian confirmed spending around £1.3m in redundancy payments since 2007.

Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the Taxpayers' Alliance, said: "At a time when many taxpayers are having to postpone their own retirement, or have seen their private pension reduced out of recognition, these pay-outs are totally unjustifiable. Mr Grice has some serious questions to answer."

John Wilson, an SNP MSP for Central Scotland, said: "While large sections of the workforce are concerned about their future, senior parliament staff are leaving with golden goodbyes prior to their normal retirement age. No doubt they will end up on other public bodies, picking up other salaries."

A parliament spokesman confirmed that £1.5m had been allocated for eight staff, adding: "The full expectation is that the team changes will pay for themselves within five years and thereafter deliver annual savings."