Pay-off for health director

THE former finance director of a health authority that MPs accused of squandering more than pounds 10m, received payments totalling almost pounds 43,000 when he resigned, including performance-related pay, it was disclosed last night.

Martin Davies left his post as finance director of the West Midlands Regional Health Authority with a 'silence clause' attached to his departure.

The authority's former chairman, Sir James Ackers - who received a pounds 10,000 'golden handshake' when he resigned in 1992 - and members and top officials were condemned last year by the Commons Public Accounts Commmittee, which said they had failed to respect 'the fundamental principles of public business'.

The MPs said the authority wasted more than pounds 10m on huge payouts to failed business consultants and officals at the expense of health care 'in a catalogue of mismanagement and lack of control'.

Dr Brian Mawhinney, Minister for Health, said in a Commons written reply last night: 'When Mr Davies resigned from West Midlands Regional Health Authority, he had a contractual entitlement to six months' notice and was paid two months' extension of contract for untaken leave, a total of pounds 36,702. He also received pounds 6,222 for cumulative performance-related pay.'