A former director at Perth and Kinross Council was paid a near £4,500 relocation fee for a job she left six months later.
Alison Williams arrived at the local authority in February to fill the newly created £128k-a-year role of economy, place and learning director.
In August she left to “explore new opportunities” before the role was axed completely by chief executive Thomas Glen in September.
The local authority had previously refused to say how much Ms Williams was paid to relocate following a Freedom of Information (FOI) request from The Courier.
The council’s FOI team said they didn’t believe releasing such information was in the public interest.
However, they have now apologised for the error after realising the figure was published in the council’s own unaudited accounts.
The lack of communication records surrounding Ms Williams departure is part of an ongoing appeal to the Scottish Information Commissioner by The Courier.
This is a separate FOI request to the one the council has now apologised for.
‘This information was incorrectly withheld’
The council refused to disclose the £4,369 relocation fee in November but has since realised the figure was already made publicly available in June.
In the unaudited accounts it is not specified that the relocation fee directly relates to Ms Williams.
The local authority’s in-house FOI department says it was not made aware that the figure was published.
Their information governance officer said: “This information was incorrectly withheld by the FOI team in response to your request.
“Unfortunately the FOI team were not made aware that this information was publicly available, or would be published in the council’s annual accounts, when they were preparing a response to your request below.
“I apologise sincerely for this and hope that this error hasn’t caused too much inconvenience.”
Ongoing record keeping concerns
The apology from the council comes amid an ongoing appeal from The Courier to obtain communication and meeting records regarding Ms Williams departure from the local authority.
Perth and Kinross Council claims there are no records at all between the chief executive and the senior leadership team about Ms Williams leaving or the subsequent scrapping of the £128k-a-year director role.
It stated that all decisions were taken during verbal discussions with chief executive Thomas Glen.
The same claim is made for the postponing of strategic lead David Littlejohn’s retirement from council to help with the transition of Ms Williams’ departure.
The Scottish Information Commissioner has confirmed it will investigate the case.
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