PAYMASTERS who signed off a controversial £304,000 severance deal to a departing college principal were advised the payout was against official guidelines, according to a former college director and lawyer.

John Doyle, former principal of Coatbridge College, received a 30-month severance deal against Scottish Funding Council (SFC) advice that no-one should receive more than 13 months.

The payout was criticised by the First Minister, MSPs and Scotland's Auditor General, who said the SFC guidance appeared to have been deliberately withheld.

Mr Doyle has previously said the guidance was available on the college intranet, but members of the remuneration committee that signed off the deal said this was "absolute nonsense", that they felt misled and were unaware of the guidance.

However, Lorraine Gunn, former director of human resources at Coatbridge College, told Holyrood's Public Audit Committee she directed the paymasters to the guidance herself.

And Paul Brown, former partner at law firm Biggart Baillie who scrutinised the pay-off, said the paymasters were aware of the SFC's strongly-worded guidelines on public sector pay-offs.

Ms Gunn said: "I made the guidance available. There was definitely a conversation in the remuneration committee when I came into the room, where the chair of the board discussed the conversation that he had with former SFC chairman Mark Batho and talked about the guidance that was available. Subsequent to that, I did make that guidance available."

Mr Brown said the members of the remuneration committee were aware of Mr Batho's advice strongly encouraging them "to stay within the parameters for the voluntary severance arrangements".

Mr Brown said: "As I understand it, what had been discussed with Mr Batho was relayed to the remuneration committee."

Earlier this month, college remuneration committee member Ralph Gunn said he was unaware of the SFC guidance.

"If I had guidance in front of me that said something markedly different from what we eventually decided, I would not have made the decision we did make," he said

Fellow committee member Thomas Keenan said: "If Mr Doyle seriously thinks that to advise committees appropriately that we should go to the intranet, then quite simply that is absolute nonsense."

Ms Gunn said today: "At Coatbridge College, we did not print off board papers and information in hard copy. We put all the information forward on the board intranet and that is how I make that information available. They were aware it was there and they were guided to that information."

Mr Brown added: "They all had iPads. My understanding was that all the papers relating to the committee meetings were uploaded on to them.

"To be clear, when I spoke to members of the remuneration committee... I was satisfied that they were all aware of the obligations on them as members of the committee. That obligation included being fully familiar with all of the information."

Coatbridge College was later merged into New College Lanarkshire, which investigated whether Mr Doyle's severance package could be recovered but was advised that any legal challenge would be likely to fail.