Cumberland Council Spent £2.16m On Staff Exit Packages In One Year
Cumberland Council spent more than £2.16 million on staff exit packages in 2024/25, with one departing employee receiving a payment of £596,328.
The figures are contained in the authority’s published statement of accounts and cover a period when four former councils were being brought together. The total expenditure related to 46 staff departures, comprising eight compulsory redundancies and 38 other agreed departures. The overall figure represents a significant increase on the £574,148 recorded for exit packages in the previous financial year.
The highest individual payment fell within the £550,001 to £600,000 band, while several other packages were also substantial. The accounts show payments across a range of cost categories, including packages exceeding £200,000. The figures have attracted political scrutiny amid wider concerns about the authority’s financial position and the circumstances surrounding the departure of a senior member of staff.
Chris Whiteside, chair of Whitehaven and Workington Conservatives, has called for greater transparency from the council. His comments followed the departure of Martin Birch, the authority’s former senior director of children and family wellbeing. Mr Whiteside questioned the circumstances of the departure, which came several months after Mr Birch had raised concerns about the budget pressures facing children's services.
Mr Whiteside said the concerns about children's services were followed by an additional £2 million allocation to address pressures in the department. He has argued that residents deserve clearer explanations about senior staff departures, the cost of exit arrangements and the council's wider financial management. He has also raised questions about comments made by auditors and the authority's response to requests for clarification.
The Conservative representative recently submitted a Freedom of Information request seeking further details about the council's finances and governance. He said the authority initially declined to provide clarification about auditors' comments, suggesting that the request would require it to create new information. Mr Whiteside said he had resubmitted the request to make clear that he was seeking an explanation of existing audit findings.
He also questioned whether the council could guarantee that it would not need to issue a Section 114 notice, a formal warning used by local authorities when they cannot balance their budgets. Cumberland Council said it does not currently meet the threshold for issuing such a notice. However, its published risk register identifies financial sustainability as a significant risk that the authority is managing.
The council has also addressed concerns about the wording used by auditors, who referred to material and pervasive issues when disclaiming an opinion on the accounts. The authority said this reflected the auditors' inability to obtain sufficient evidence by the national deadline, partly because of work required to publish four years of outstanding accounts inherited from predecessor councils. It stressed that the wording was not a finding that the accounts were incorrect.
In response to the criticism, a Cumberland Council spokesperson said its accounts, budget documents and independent reviews by the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy were publicly available and scrutinised by elected members. The council said the £2.16 million covered 46 departures during the process of bringing four authorities together, with many exits forming part of longer-term savings plans. It added that all payments were made in accordance with statutory regulations, council policies and contractual obligations. The council also pointed to the latest independent review, which found a high level of confidence that it could balance its 2027/28 budget without further government support.
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