ALACE RESPONDS TO DRAFT GUIDANCE ON SPECIAL SEVERANCE PAYMENTS IN LOCAL GOVERNMENT
ALACE has given its initial response to the draft guidance on special severance
payments that was published for consultation on 2 July.
ALACE issued a press release on 5 July about the MHCLG’s draft best value guidance. ALACE will respond to the consultation in due course.
Tracey Lee, chairman of ALACE, said “Councils are already the most transparent
organisations in the public sector and are subject to more rigorous requirements and
scrutiny around staff pay and exit payments than the civil service, NHS and other
public bodies.
“We will consider this draft best value guidance carefully and provide a full response.
We are concerned that it does not acknowledge that mandatory pension strain,
where the employer has no choice to meet it under the local government pension
scheme regulations, is not a special severance payment. We hope that this does not
signal any Government attempt to erase long-standing provisions of the pension
scheme.”
Ian Miller, Honorary Secretary of ALACE, added “We will scrutinise the draft
guidance to make sure that it does not impose additional requirements on local
government compared to the guidance that Treasury has issued for Government
departments, and that local government staff are not treated differently or adversely
as a consequence”.