Audit Wales’ investigation into former Pembrokeshire Chief Executive’s settlement agreement to be made available

A report on Audit Wales’ investigation into the former chief executive’s settlement agreement will be available in the “near future.”

Pembrokeshire County Council’s governance and audit committee met on Tuesday, April 13 and received an update on its audited financial statements.

A report states “we routinely examine termination payments to chief officers when auditing the financial statements.”

A recorded decision to enter the settlement agreement with Ian Westley was not located, the report adds, and “appeared unusual” and “audit fieldwork is substantially complete.”

It adds that because of the “complex nature” of some issues external legal advice had also been sought.

“In the near future we will draft a document setting out our provisional findings and conclusions.

“Once this document is ready we will commence a clearance process to confirm factual accuracy. If the document contains criticism of identifiable individuals, in the first instance we will provide those individuals with any extracts of the document that pertain to them.

“Once we have confirmed the factual accuracy with individuals, we will send the full draft document to the Council’s Chief Executive to identify any remaining factual inaccuracies. We will only issue the finalised document once the clearance process has been completed,” a report to committee states.

The fees for this audit work is not yet included in the latest reports and will be in addition to the £308,490 identified fees for other audit work.