A college has been criticised for "serious failings" in its handling of severance arrangements for staff, including making payments to bosses which exceeded agreed amounts for redundancy packages.

A report by spending watchdog Audit Scotland said Coatbridge College had failed to meet the standards expected of public bodies in its handling of severance deals.

A number of staff left the college after it merged with two others to form New College Lanarkshire in 2014.

These included the principal, five members of the senior management team and a member of staff within the principal's office, at a cost of £849,842.

The proposed terms of the severance scheme for senior management were discussed at a meeting of the college's remuneration committee in January 2013, but auditors found it was unclear who developed the terms.

They included a lump sum equivalent to 21 months' salary for senior management, while the principal was also to receive an additional three months' severance pay for taking the college successfully through to merger.

The Audit Scotland report states: "The minutes of the remuneration committee for January 2013 indicated that the aspiration was that this scheme would be extended to all staff at the college.

"When the Coatbridge College remuneration committee met on October 23, 2013, it agreed to revise the terms of the severance scheme, reducing the maximum lump sum element to 13 months for all staff, including the senior management team.

"These terms were in line with the arrangements being applied at both Cumbernauld College and Motherwell College (the other two colleges in the merger).

"However, the final payments to the five members of the senior management team and the member of staff in the principal's office included additional payments that meant the severance payments exceeded the terms agreed by the remuneration committee on October 23, 2013.

"There is limited evidence of the reasons for these additional payments and of the decisions to award them."

The report added: "There is no evidence that the remuneration committee or the board were provided with detailed business cases setting out the costs and justification for severance payments to the principal, five members of the senior management team or the member of staff in the principal's office."

Auditors commented that the severance scheme for senior staff was in fact "significantly higher" than the Scottish Funding Council's guidance, and the schemes of Cumbernauld College and Motherwell College.

They noted that the college did not retain sufficient evidence that severance proposals, and salary enhancements, had been subject to a value for money assessment, and there was an absence of any evidence that the remuneration committee had access to the information and advice it needed to fulfil its responsibilities.

There was also a failure by the principal to take the steps needed to demonstrate that the inherent conflicts of interest were properly handled.

The report added: "The poor decision-making and record-keeping has resulted in potentially unnecessary costs being incurred by the college and is likely to affect public perception of the quality of college governance."

The report into failings at Coatbridge College follows an earlier Audit Scotland report published in April which found that several colleges did not handle cuts in the number of senior staff during the college merger programme as well as they could have.

"Before approving any severance payments, those charged with governance must ensure that they represent a good use of public money, and a clear audit trail should be retained," Audit Scotland said.