The city council has been accused of an “absolutely galling” waste of taxpayers’ cash after it emerged a highly-paid interim official cost the authority nearly £400,000 for 20 months work.
Richard Ellis left last month as the deputy chief executive, director of corporate governance and head of transformation.
He had originally been signed on to work from November 2015 to June 2016 as a “temporary” appointment through agency Siller Management Ltd at a cost of £4,775 a week.
But his contract was extended as a permanent replacement for the role could not be found – with the going salary for the job set at £147,000.
Now it has emerged that the local authority has hired Richard Lundie-Sadd, also believed to be on a six figure salary, as an “interim transformation consultant”.
The council already employs Simon Haston as “head of IT and transformation”.
Last night a council spokesman said that they weren’t actively recruiting for a permanent staff member to fill the governance role at present and said that Mr Lundie-Sadd was not a “like for like” replacement of Mr Ellis.
A large-scale restructuring of the council is being prepared behind the scenes with more senior staff likely to join the exodus from Marischal College.
One source suggested interim appointments could be used as a way to reduce scrutiny as a panel of elected councillors – required for permanent appointments – does not need to be consulted.
SNP Aberdeen Central MSP, and former council finance convener, Kevin Stewart said: “It is absolutely galling that so many top officer positions are taken up by people on these contracts.“
North-east regional officer for the Unite union Tommy Campbell said: “We have got serious concerns that the transformational programme is being organised by officials in Ivory Towers.
“We want to see councillors involved in making decisions on interim appointments as well as permanent.”
But council leader Jenny Laing said: ““The really ‘galling’ thing about Kevin Stewart’s latest attack on this council is that when he was finance convener at Aberdeen City Council he presided over £127million of cuts to frontline services and sanctioned £27million of voluntary severance / early redundancy payments as part of those cuts.
“This is a new administration, structures within the council are constantly under review, and where there is an opportunity for improvement we will work towards that. “