A STRING of council bosses have been accused of topping up their final salary pension pots by retiring after an election when their earnings are boosted by returning officer duties.
Around half a dozen local authority chief executives stood down in 2014 and 2015, a move which enabled them to add the one-off fees paid to them as returning officers to their final salary pensions.
Herald View: Returning officers should share the financial pain
In one case, this boosted a final salary of over £170,000 by in excess of £20,000.
Despite recent changes, returning officers are still permitted to add their fees to career average pensions.
One former prominent local government figure said the system was “an outrage” and allowed those who stepped down from the top roles in local government to “benefit... from the public purse for the rest of their lives”.
Those who quit were of the age to retire from the public sector and there is no suggestion any have committed wrongdoing.
It comes after The Herald revealed Scotland’s 32 council chief executives shared over £1 million in returning officer fees in just two years. The figure, which comes close to £2m when several polls across 2010, 2011 and 2012 are factored in, sparked calls for the duties to become part of a chief executive’s core duties and the payments’ system overhauled.
Calls for reform of the payments system came from, amongst others, the body representing council chiefs.
Glasgow’s George Black, Stirling’s Bob Jack and David Dorward of Dundee all stood down in 2014 while Edinburgh’s Sue Bruce and Gavin Whitefield of North Lanarkshire retired the following year, allowing them to add their fees for overseeing the European elections to their final salary pensions.
Read more: Last hurrah for council chiefs
Mr Whitefield was paid over £12,000 for the European elections, Ms Bruce around £16,500 and Mr Black £23,000.
Referenda are not included in pensions, meaning the five could not top up their schemes with the money received for the independence referendum the same year.
Later this year, Inverclyde’s John Mundell will stand down, collecting around £7,000 in fees for the Brexit and Scottish Parliament polls and adding the portion for the latter to his average pension scheme.
Unison’s Scottish organiser Dave Watson was part of the team involved in the negotiations over the recent changes now included in the Local Government Pension Scheme (Scotland) Regulations 2014.
He said: “Historically this has been a benefit and a very real benefit to those close to retirement. That changed in April 2015 when these fees became part of a career average salary pension. Perhaps not the benefit it was but still a boost to the calculations.
“The argument for including it is that chief executives pay tax and national insurance on their returning officers' fees and therefore it should be pensionable. They have a point.
“The argument against is that these are one-off payments and other one-off payments aren’t included in pension schemes.”
Murdo Fraser, finance spokesman for the Scottish Tories, said: “These latest revelations add to the argument for a thorough review of the financial arrangements around returning officers, their salaries and pensions.
“These are already handsomely paid people who are seeing their salaries and pensions topped on a regular basis by elections and referenda.
“There will be many local government workers who will have seen their salary frozen for a number of years who will look withy dismay at those at the top of the tree being handsomely rewarded.”
One former prominent local government figure added: “This is a racket that the public are paying for. This is a job where the tasks should be part and parcel of a chief executive’s role.
“It’s bad enough that they are being paid extra but that those who have retired will be benefitting massively in terms of their pensions directly from the public purse for the rest of their lives is an outrage.”
A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: “Returning officers’ fees form part of the individual’s pensionable pay for the period in question.”
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