Police to take no further action on unlawful payments at Northumberland County Council

It follows a review of a file relating to six payments made between 2017 and 2022 which were handed to Northumbria Police in February by the county council’s top lawyer, Stephen Gerrard.

Earlier this year, Mr Gerrard explained that the payments did not have the correct authorisation from councillors. It was suggested that an error in the council’s pay policies between 2019 and 2022 could have been the reason behind the error.

Speaking at the latest meeting of the council’s audit committee, the monitoring officer read out a statement from Northumbria Police following a review of the evidence.

He said: “I have a letter from Northumbria Police in relation to matters referred to them in relation to possible criminal conduct by Northumberland County Council officers in regards to the severance payments issue. I will not take questions on this because, in a sense, this is a letter from the police for them to account for their actions, not myself.”

The letter revealed that officers had spoken to former council leader Peter Jackson and ex-cabinet member Nick Oliver as part of the review.

In October 2023, Cllr Jackson called for an investigation into the payments, claiming there had been “quite a lot of illegal activity” at the council. At the same meeting, Cllr Oliver also called for the matter to be referred to the police.

The letter read: “Officers have considered whether the documentary evidence is suggestive of fraud, misconduct in a public office or a breach of the Localism Act 2011. The team have worked with Mr Gerrard, Kevin McDonald (the council’s head of internal audit) and also approached councillors Nick Oliver and Peter Jackson to ascertain if they held material relevant to the review.

“The outcome of this review is that the threshold for recording and commencing a criminal investigation is not met. This concludes the involvement of Northumbria Police in this matter.”

Both Cllr Jackson and Cllr Oliver sit on the audit committee and were present at the meeting, but did not comment on the letter.