What on earth is going on at South Kesteven District Council...?

Tory Leader of SKDC Linda Neal is trying to justify banning anyone who doesn't already work for the council from applying for the £105k a year top job.

At the same time, she refuses to confirm reports that she authorised a £100,000 pay-off to get rid of the biking Duncan Kerr who mysteriously and suddenly quit the job a couple of months ago - the Grantham Journal says he was sacked.

The Council insists that their deal with Duncan Kerr to quietly pedal all the way to the bank is "confidential" and nothing to do with us - local taxpayers who are forced to stump up the money!

Congratulations of course to Beverly Agass, whose appointment as new Chief Exec was rubber-stamped at a meeting of SKDC. I don't know if anyone else even applied for the job, but I'm sure we all wish her well.

And congratulations to the Grantham Journal for asking the right questions.

The Journal reports that the council voted to get rid off former boss Duncan Kerr and

The position of chief executive was only open to internal candidates already working within the council.

Council leader Linda Neal defended the appointment process.

She said: "I would like to state emphatically, Mrs Agass actually got the job - we did not give it to her.

"There was nothing about the whole process that gave any leeway to Mrs Agass because she was already working here."

Except of course, that if she wasn't "already working here", she wouldn't have been allowed to even apply for the job!

For the record, I've posted on the debacle HERE, HERE, and HERE
mysterious departure of Duncan-the-bike-Kerr.

Determined to ask the awkward questions...

Surprised that I seem to be the only local councillor calling for more information about the cost of the mysterious sudden departure of the Chief Executive of South Kesteven District Council.

I was interviewed for the Oakham-based Oak FM last night and quoted in today's Stamford Mercury trying to get the Conservatives who run SKDC to come clean and reveal what deal has been agreed - and at what expense to the public purse.

Linda Neal, the Conservative Leader of SKDC is denying that Duncan's departure is sudden, claiming she's been speaking with him all year about him going!

But she hasn't explained why the man we paid £105,000 a year to run our district council cleared his desk on the day of a secret meeting of councillors earlier this week, and apparently biked into the sunset.

Given that I'd been hearing rumours that the Tories wanted rid of him, I find it hard to accept that he's walked - or biked - from his £105k a year job without negotiating a generous severance deal.

I'm surprised no other local councillor else seems to be speaking out in the local media - specially as the Tories in Lincolnshire have form on getting rid of chief execs (after Tory Leader of the county council Jim Speechley was jailed for abuse of office, they launched a witch-hunt to sack David Bowles. He agreed to go for a payoff of £400,000- and we're all still paying the price of Speechley...)

Given what I know about the Speechley scandal and the cover-up antics at County Hall which followed his imprisonment, I'm determined to get the the bottom of the cost of Duncan Kerr's departure.

Someone has to speak up on behalf of local taxpayers and get answers about how much Duncan's departure is costing us all...and I full intend to keep asking the awkward questions.

Watch this space.