DCLG in guidance on severance agreements, off payroll and performance appraisal

Writing in the foreword to the guidance, Communities Secretary Eric Pickles said: “Local authorities are of course independent employers, and it is for their leadership to make decisions about the management of their workforces.

“However, the Government expects councils and fire and rescue authorities to achieve the same the standards as the rest of the public sector in the way they manage staff.”

On severance agreements, Pickles said the Government had recently put in place new guidelines for central government departments and their arms length bodies on their appropriate use.

“These guidelines establish important and clear principles including that agreements cannot be used to cover up examples of individual or organisational failure,” he said, adding that he believed that, in line with the rest of the public sector, local authorities should also follow these guidelines to be more accountable on their use of severance agreements.

On ‘off-payroll arrangements’, the Secretary State said that Whitehall departments had reviewed the use of personal service contracts in their workforces and where misuse had been found, the Government had taken swift action, “including by terminating a number of contracts”.

He said he wanted to “make sure local taxpayers can be reassured that local authorities are taking an equally robust stance on the issue”.

Finally, on the performance appraisal of senior staff, Pickles said it was “more important than ever” that local authorities could demonstrate to their communities that they had strong and effective arrangements in place for managing performance of their senior staff.

“Better performance management can make it easier to tackle performance issues quicker, which will improve services and can help avoid costly exit deals,” he argued.

“Authorities should open up their performance appraisal arrangements to scrutiny and give the public the opportunity to have their say on the way the authority and its most senior staff are performing.”

A copy of the guidance can be viewed here.