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COST-CUT TER’S£174k PAY-OFF

Protesters’ fury at director’s golden handshake

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BY ALEX CAMPBELLalex.campbell@thesentinel.co.uk

A CITY council director who over-saw unprecedented £14.6 millioncuts to children’s services was paid£174,000 to walk away from herj o b.

Sharon Menghini, picturedb e l ow, quit the council and pock-eted the golden handshake afterStoke-on-Trent City Councilrevealed plans to merge her role incharge of children’s services.

The pay-out, combined with£151,515 in salary and expenses and£22,953 in pension contributions,took Dr Menghini’s total pay packetfor 2011/12 to £348,218.

It comes as the authority over-sees cuts of £24 million across thecity, following £35.6 millionsavings last year, with chil-d re n’s services facing a£3.5 million overspend.

Dr Menghini’s payoutmade her the city’s mostexpensive officer last year– even topping the £223,203in salary, expenses and pen-sion payments claimed bychief executive Johnvan de Laarschot.

She oversaw cutsof £9.5 million in2011/12 and £5.1million for thecurrent financial

year, including botched plans toshut seven children’s centreswhich instead saw all 16 centres hitwith major cutbacks.

Dr Menghini is now running herown consultancy firm, ‘S h a ro nMenghini Education & ChildrenServices Consultancy’, and lists“implementing budget cuts”among her expertise.

Independent councillor DaveConway was responsible forexamining the cutbacks in his roleas chairman of the children’s ser-vices scrutiny committee.

He said: “Along with the pro-testers, we fought tooth and nail toreduce the cuts to children’sc e n t re s.

“We were told every penny had tobe saved.

“Now we find she has walkedaway with this astronomical

amount.“It is the sort of money

that most people can onlydream of.”

The council axed DrMenghini’s post after shequit, and pooled the manage-

ment of children’s servicesand adult social

care in April.Tony Oakman

is now in chargeof a merged‘Pe o p l e ’ d i re c t -o r at e,

although Eleanor Brazil has beenappointed as an interim director ofch i l d re n’s services.

And Mr van de Laarschot hasalso now hired assistant chief exec-utive Charlie Stewart on £132,000-a-ye a r.

Cuts to children’s centres thisyear include in-house teachers los-ing their jobs and £1 charges intro-duced for previously free sessionslike baby massage groups.

Mother-of-two Emma Boote, aged35, of Norton, a member of the SaveOur Children’s Centres group, said:“We know Sharon would havefought for children’s serviceswhereas we don’t know where westand with the new director.

“But this is a huge amount ofmoney to be given just for walkingaway and surely it could have beenspent on stopping the city becom-ing more and more deprived.”

Matthew Sinclair, chief executiveof the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said:“Golden goodbyes on this scalecompletely undermine the savingscouncils are having to find.

“When the council has doled outsuch a vast sum to Dr Menghinimerely for quitting her job, tax-payers have every right to feelutterly cheated.”

The council said the changes tothe People directorate will be com-pleted within a year.

Mr Stewart, said: “The post ofdirector of children and youngpeople’s services has been deletedand we expect the transitionalarrangements to be completed inthe next 12 months, which will alsosave a director-level salary.”

Should council bosses receive‘golden goodbyes’? Email us atletters@thesentinel.co.uk

SAVED: MumEmma Booteand daughterBethanyjoined aprotestagainstplans toclosechildren’scentres lastJuly.

BAC KPAG E