‘Total incompetence’ by board bosses on health chief payout

HEALTH board bosses have been accused of ‘total incompetence’ for giving a former chief executive a payoff £32,000 bigger than she was entitled to.

Scotland’s Auditor General Caroline Gardner found ‘errors’ were made in the £90,000 severance package when Lesley McLay was forced to quit her role at NHS Tayside after a financial crisis.

In addition to pension contributions and holiday pay, Mrs McLay received £64,211 – £32,105 more than she was entitled to because she was paid in lieu of six months’ notice instead of the three months stipulated in her contact.

Addressing Holyrood’s audit committee, Mrs Gardner said: ‘There was real confusion in the advice given to the acting chief executive and chair about the notice period which was relevant to the former chief executive.’

She added: ‘My report identifies that the person providing advice [about the severance pay] to the interim chief executive and interim chair was the assistant chief executive.’ Assistant chief executive and strategic director of workforce Dr Annie Ingram – who is still in the post – was unable to justify the decision, say auditors.

But former health secretary Alex Neil said: ‘It’s not just confusion, it’s total incompetence.’

Board chairman John Brown said: ‘We believe the approach we took was the right thing to avoid a drawn-out legal process which would have cost the public purse a significantly larger sum.’

A Scottish Government spokesman said: ‘We note that Audit Scotland reported that the approach taken by the board to negotiate the settlement was reasonable. However, they did identify a number of errors in assumption and in governance in the process.

‘Health Secretary Jeane Freeman has raised these issues with both the permanent secretary and the director general of the Health Department to ensure that clear guidance goes to boards on applying notice periods.’