A slightly late but rather surprising response arrived this morning to my Freedom of Information request concerning a staff member listed in the Council's Statement of Accounts as earning over £150,000. The Council is required to name and give details of anyone in this bracket (listed as between £155,000 and £159,999) and I was puzzled by this mystery high earner and more particularly their job title.
Anyway, according to the response it seems the Council have admitted they'd made an 'error', let's just hope there aren't any more;
'We have now been able to look into this matter and can confirm that there is an error in the notes to the Statement of Accounts. The actual remuneration received by the individual in question was not in excess of £150k as reported.
We are therefore grateful that you have brought this to our attention via your request as this has enabled us to identify this error, which will be raised with our external auditors'.
The response also politely points out to me the difference between 'salary' and 'remuneration', which I am aware of. Let's hope then, as a result of FOI, it has been politely pointed out to them the difference between getting the accounts right, and getting them wrong...
The full thread of the request can be seen on the What Do They Know website.
Anyway, according to the response it seems the Council have admitted they'd made an 'error', let's just hope there aren't any more;
'We have now been able to look into this matter and can confirm that there is an error in the notes to the Statement of Accounts. The actual remuneration received by the individual in question was not in excess of £150k as reported.
We are therefore grateful that you have brought this to our attention via your request as this has enabled us to identify this error, which will be raised with our external auditors'.
The response also politely points out to me the difference between 'salary' and 'remuneration', which I am aware of. Let's hope then, as a result of FOI, it has been politely pointed out to them the difference between getting the accounts right, and getting them wrong...
The full thread of the request can be seen on the What Do They Know website.