Council acted ‘appropriately’ over £275,000 payment to CEO

Derry City Council ‘acted appropriately’ in handing its final chief executive a £275,000 redundancy package, an investigation into the matter has found.

Sharon O’Connor (pictured) was appointed chief executive of the council in 2011.

She left the high-profile role earlier this year when the council merged with Strabane District Council as part of the Review of Public Administration in Northern Ireland.

Her pay-off from the council was negotiated as a £165,500 redundancy payment and a pension plan of £110,758 – a total of £276,258.

The payments provoked widespread criticism from both local ratepayers and politicians, given the short period that Ms O’Connor had worked with the council.

However, Ms O’Connor said the payment was based on her 15 years of employment within local government.

Prior to taking up the post in Derry, she had worked for Down District Council for 11 years.

The Northern Ireland Audit Office (NIAO) has revealed it was asked to look into the redundancy payments to Ms O’Connor after being approached by a whistle-blower.

NIAO director Colette Kane attended a meeting of Derry City and Strabane District Council’s Assurance, Audit and Risk committee last Thursday to discuss the accounts of both the new council and Derry City Council’s final set of accounts. During the meeting, she was asked by independent councillor, Paul Gallagher, if they had looked in to the payments given to Ms O’Connor as part of their audit of the two councils’ accounts.

Ms Kane said NIAO had been asked to look at the issue after they were contacted by an anonymous whistle-blower.

She said: “We were content that having examined all the documents that the council had acted appropriately.”

Independent councillor, Gary Donnelly, asked if the whistle-blower had been a member of the council.

Ms Kane said the whistle-blower had been anonymous but added that they treated all whistle-blowers the same, whether they remained anonymous or not.

For the final months of Derry City Council and Strabane District Council, the newly-merged council operated in shadow form and had to sign off on any major financial decisions taken by either council.

Following the decision of Derry City Council to award the redundancy package to Ms O’Connor, the decision was ratified by the shadow Derry City and Strabane District Council.

Speaking at last week’s meeting, independent councillor, Darren O’Reilly, said the shadow council had not been given ‘enough time’ to make an ‘informed decision’ on the payment.

He said they would have usually been given a week to look at such an issue.

However, he said the shadow council had only been given a day’s notice about Ms O’Connor’s payment.

One day after leaving her job with Derry City Council earlier this year, Ms O'Connor started a new job as chairperson of the Education Authority.

The Education Authority is an amalgamation of the five former education and library boards and administers education across Northern Ireland.

In her new part-time role, Ms O’Connor is paid a salary of £50,000 a year.