CUMBRIA’S FATTEST TOWN HALL CAT

By Richard Whittington

A FAT cat council boss in Cumbria lapped up half a million pounds for just a YEAR in the job.

John Metcalfe banked £586,000 for his short time as chief executive of Cumbria County Council between April 2022 and March 2023, it has finally emerged.

Now back in the Isle of Wight, ‘Cumbria’s Casino Council’ handed him more than TREBLE the Prime Minister for just a year’s work.

CCC was abolished in April 2023 and it has now come out that Metcalfe walked away with a ridiculous “GOLDEN GOODBYE” for his single year of service in Cumbria.

It included a £170k salary; a £16,724 loss of office payment and £399,000 into his pension pot.

His life-changing payday has been exposed by The Taxpayers Alliance.

The TPA outed Metcalfe as the country’s SECOND highest-paid council boss in the country in its newly-published Town Hall Rich List.

The shameful scroll reveals more than 3,000 other council fat cats around the country raking in more than £100,000 a year and that’s BEFORE five-figure annual pension payments.

All the while hiking Council Tax and bleating about a lack of money for services! The list shows some councils are even REFUSING to identify the names of their highest earners.

N.B: * A total of 21 other officers at CCC were paid MORE THAN £100,000 (before pension) in its final year of operation.

BACKGROUND

JOHN METCALFE slid into the top job at Cumbria County Council in April 2022 to spend the final year of its existence “turning off the lights”.

His appointment followed a long and unsuccessful trawl by leading Labour and Lib Dem councillors to recruit somebody to steer the rudderless ship into abolition with no guaranteed job at the end of it.

Metcalfe slipped into the highly-paid heels of former county council boss Katherine Fairclough, who had deserted the sinking ship in the summer of 2021.

The unitary authority “iceberg” would have sunk her own £145,000 a year job (before pension), so she fled early.

In June 2021, Fairclough joined a “super council” in Liverpool where she is now paid £188,000 a year plus an annual pension of £26,000.

And in the mercenary-like way town hall chiefs go around the country commanding ever BIGGER paydays, Metcalfe unselfishly headed north having left his £163,000 a year package as chief exec of Isle of Wight Council.

His move – after 25 years with the English Channel council – might possibly have been influenced by the RIDICULOUS wonga Cumbria County Council agreed to throw at him?

He signed on for a “basic” £170,000 salary but only now has his undisclosed pay-off deal crept out.

His appointment, as all top-level council jobs are, was agreed behind CLOSED DOORS away from any public and Press, by a high-ranking table of councillors and HR bods.

These appointments are then formally “rubber-stamped” by councillors, supposedly representing the tax-paying public.

Sure enough, his appointment was obediently waved through by the large Labour and Liberal Democrat coalition holding power in the CCC chamber, with not a question of how much he might cost council coffers.

Even the opposition Conservative group leader rolled out the red carpet.

Cllr Hilary Carrick, told a county council press release at the time: “I feel that John will bring with him all of the skills we need now and for the future.”

Metcalfe’s appointment was only ever 12 months, so there was no “future”.

He now describes himself as “interim chief exec” and will have plenty of time on the Isle of (All) Wight to stroke his huge Cumbrian nest egg, all completely legal and above board, naturally.