Council right over ex-boss' £209,000 payoff, says MS

Caerphilly council did the right thing in paying off its former chief executive with £209,000, a Labour Senedd member has said.

In the Senedd, Caerphilly MS Hefin David defended the settlement for Christina Harrhy, agreed in secret last week.

He said her complaints about working relationships within the council were "spurious and vexatious", and argued that an alternative approach could have cost much more.

Ms Harrhy had been absent from work for almost a year prior to the settlement and left last week. She has declined to comment.

It is the second substantial pay off to a former chief executive of Caerphilly council in three years.

The council has so far refused to discuss what happened in the meeting last week describing it as a "confidential employment issue".

Councillors were warned against speaking about the issue publicly and the meeting was closed to the press, but sources told the BBC that the settlement was voted through by the council's governing Labour group.

It is understood that Ms Harrhy had raised concerns about working relationships and trust relating to Labour leader Sean Morgan and a senior officer.

Sources had told the BBC that an investigation allegedly did not stand up the claims.

In the Senedd, David said that the allegations aired by the BBC "were not proven, and in fact were proven to be spurious and vexatious".

"The working relationships then would be very difficult to repair and, in fact, a disciplinary investigation might have been appropriate."

Calling the former chief executive an "errant" officer, David said a disciplinary investigation and the risk of a tribunal would have added "increasing costs to the council that go way beyond the £209,000 it cost to pay her off".

"This is a problem in the system. It is not a problem for the leadership of the council. They have acted in the public interest by gaining a dismissal in this way, and they've done the right thing."

He said the Welsh government had agreed in 2020 to look again at the process by which the designated independent person process is run, and a review had produced recommendations. David added: "Following that, nothing else has happened."

Welsh government business minister Jane Hutt replied that it was not appropriate for her to comment.