Peterborough council chief given £90k redundancy payout

Simon Machen, the council’s former corporate director of growth and regeneration, was made redundant last year as part of a restructure.

The change saw a single person take over both his job and the equivalent role at Cambridgeshire County Council under the title of executive director for place and economy.

The city council’s latest Statement of Accounts shows that Mr Machen, who was in charge of services including planning, received a total remuneration of £243,397 in the 2018/19 financial year up to March 17.

This included a salary of £126,425, ‘compensation for loss of office’ of £94,945 and a pension contribution of £22,027.

The compensation was the equivalent of nine months of his salary.

A city council spokesperson said Mr Machen had been entitled to the redundancy payout.

Mr Machen’s replacement, Steve Cox, was given a basic salary of between £124,504 and £147,154 when he was hired, split equally between both the city and county councils.

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The restructure saw a greater merging of senior executive roles across both councils which was expected to save £90,000 a year for the city council.