Leicestershire’s police and crime commissioner pays out £56,000 in compensation after disbanding his ethics committee

Conservative PCC Rupert Matthews decided to disband the seven-strong ethics, integrity and complaints committee and replace them with a new ethics and transparency panel.

The members of the group then filed a claim for unfair dismissal and Mr Matthews paid each of them £8,000 in a settlement that did not include an admission of liability. His Labour predecessor, Lord Willy Bach, criticised the dismissal as ‘outrageous’, claiming Mr Matthews sacked them because “he didn’t like their questions and criticism”.

But Mr Matthews has said he felt the previous committee was ‘not focused enough’ and he decided to replace them with a new panel that was more in line with his police and crime plan. He claimed that he invited all seven former members to put their names forward to sit on the new group.

He said: “The members of the former Committee agreed to settle this matter. I recognise that they felt aggrieved by the dissolution of the Committee on which they sat but find it very disappointing that as former members of a Committee focused on ethics and integrity, they felt it appropriate to seek financial recompense from the public purse. The Committee met four times a year at most and obviously I did not believe the voluntary committee had any employment status.

“It is of course regrettable that this situation arose and while I would have preferred matters to have been settled without financial recourse, I saw no point in prolonging things any further. Therefore, to curtail the financial cost of taking this matter to a Tribunal which would have hinged on a legal technicality, it was felt that a financial settlement for each member was the most economically expedient option.

“I would like to make it absolutely clear that my decision to wind-up the former Committee had nothing to do with political allegiances, or challenge to my approach."

Lord Bach said: “For the current Commissioner to sack the Committee simply because he didn’t like their questions and criticism was shameful. They have been treated appallingly. Their service deserved better.”