A former college principal who has refused to pay back a contentious £304,000 pay-off is under "active investigation" by the police, a Holyrood spokesman has said.
Former Coatbridge College principal John Doyle has been publicly accused of colluding with college chairman John Gray to withhold information from the college board to secure the pay-off, which was well in excess of Scottish Funding Council (SFC) guidelines restricting pay-offs to a year's salary.
Holyrood's Public Audit Committee , the Auditor General and the SFC all agreed the collusion took place and First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said she was "appalled" by the situation.
In an unprecedented move for a Holyrood committee, Public Audit sent a copy of its report to Police Scotland to "consider what action can be taken".
Police Scotland told the committee this week the matter "is under active investigation", a Scottish Parliament spokesman said.
Read more: Parliamentary report into pay-off row college principal passed to police
SFC chairman Laurence Howells wrote to the committee on March 22 to provide an update on their efforts to recover the payment.
He attached a letter from Mr Doyle's solicitors which said the former principal intends to keep the money as he does not accept the allegations of collusion.
Mr Howells said the SFC will take no further action to recover the payment unless "further evidence comes to light, for example from any police investigation".
Mr Howells said: "We have now had a response from Mr Doyle's legal advisers stating that he will not return any of the payment.
"SFC has sought counsel's opinion on potential recovery of the payment from Mr Doyle. Counsel's opinion ... is that such action would not have a sufficient chance of success to justify the expense.
"We will therefore, regretfully, not be taking any further action to recover the money at this time.
"We will however reconsider this should any further evidence come to light, for example from any police investigation."
A letter from Mr Doyle's solicitor Brechin Tindal Oatts stated: "Our client has instructed us to advise you that he is not prepared to repay the severance payment made to him by Coatbridge College in October 2013.
"For the avoidance of doubt, this is because our client does not agree with the findings of the Public Accounts [sic] Committee report.
"His position is that he fulfilled his duties as the principal and chief executive officer and; in particular there was no collusion between our client and John Gray and information was not deliberately withheld from the [Coatbridge College] remuneration committee."
Mr Doyle said he has uncovered an email from remuneration committee member Tom Keenan which indicated that he was aware of the SFC guidance but "remained supportive of that payment".
BTO added: "This email was sent to the Public Accounts [sic] Commission but they have indicated that they are not willing to publish it."
A Scottish Parliament spokesman said: "The Public Audit Committee's inquiry into severance payments at the former Coatbridge College concluded at the end of last year following a series of evidence-taking sessions. The committee's report was published in January.
"Mr Doyle subsequently wrote to the committee with what he described as additional evidence.
"Mr Doyle was afforded several opportunities to provide evidence to the committee while the inquiry was live and the committee continues to stand by the conclusions of its report."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article