An MSP has called for an inquiry into a fire chief's second early retirement – just weeks after his first pension package was slated by spending watchdogs.
Brian Sweeney is expected to quit the role of Strathclyde Firemaster in March, rather than join the new, unified Scottish Fire Service under the leadership of Alasdair Hay.
However, the £150,000-a-year fire chief would still have 12 months of a three-year contract to serve.
After first stepping down in July 2011, Mr Sweeney was given access to a lump sum pension arrangement.
He was re-hired a month later in the same £150,000-a-year job.
The move was described by the public spending watchdog Accounts Commission as not meeting "the public's expectations of what is an acceptable use of public funds".
The deal depended on the Strathclyde Fire Board setting aside £236,000 of public money for a potential tax charge due because Mr Sweeney was retiring early.
MSP Margaret Mitchell said there was an urgent need to have Mr Sweeney's second retirement arrangements investigated by the Accounts Commission.
She said: "The chairman of the fire board must be making sure everything is in the public domain."
Strathclyde Fire and Rescue has been reluctant to discuss Mr Sweeney's plans after March 31 next year.
A freedom of information submission to the fire board requesting details of Mr Sweeney's intentions was told it "does not hold information" on his plans.
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