Richard Alderman is taken to task over the “irregular” payments in a report by Tim Hurdle, a senior civil servant at the Treasury Solicitor’s Office, the Telegraph reports.
The report was commissioned by Mr Alderman’s successor, David Green, who wanted to know why the SFO’s former chief executive Philippa Williamson left with a severance package of £464,905, while ex-chief capability officer Chris Bailes received £473,167 and ex-technology head Ian McCall got £49,885.
The exit package for Ms Williamson, which the report notes amounted to “some three and a quarter times her salary”, was so unusual that it caused the National Audit Office to qualify the SFO’s accounts.
The report found that the decision to make both Ms Williamson and Mr Bailes redundant “appears to have been made by Richard Alderman alone”, while he also “specifically authorised” additional ex-gratia payments of £15,000 each for the pair and a further £5,000 each as “outplacement provisions”.
The report said: “It is difficult to conclude from the evidence currently available that Richard Alderman, in his role of SFO Accounting Officer, took sufficient steps to ensure that his chosen course of action represented good value for money. It is also likely that his apparent desire for secrecy on these matters will have substantially reduced his ability to assess alternative courses of action.”
