A Kent County Council boss was given a £365,000 payment when he quit a job after a year.
Adam Wilkinson, now chief executive of Derby City Council, received the huge pay out from Kent County Council where he had worked as director of environment and regeneration.
He terminated his £170,000-a-year job after just 12 months and was given the sum - which amounted to nearly £1,000 for every day he worked at the authority.
Mr Wilkinson said he left the Conservative-run council in 2008 because he was returning to West Yorkshire each weekend, where his wife and four daughters lived.
'My family weren't happy and it wasn't working out with the commute,' he said.
'I was living in Maidstone during the week and going back to West Yorkshire at the weekend. It was tiring and stressful.
'The salary was great from the financial perspective and the job was a great challenge, but the work and life balance was not working.
'Kent were very supportive and didn't think it was sustainable. We agreed that departure was best for me and my family. Contractually, Kent had a responsibility to make me a payment.
'What I was entitled to on departure was a proportion of my salary and bonus and that's what I was paid.'
After leaving the council, he set up his own consultancy firm whose services were used by City of York Council, where he took on the role of interim director of neighbourhoods.
A spokesman for Kent County Council said Mr Wilkinson was not alone in having received such a large pay-out.
'The individuals who received total remuneration over £300,000 received termination payments which appear in the statement of accounts alongside their salaries for the year,' he said.
'It is not unusual for a major employer like Kent County Council, which has a workforce of 44,000, to agree termination payments.'
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This is an outrageous use of tax payers money. Who in Kent County Council has taken responsibility for their failure to carry out a correct recruitment and interview process? Don't you think it's also ironic that KCC spends £millions of taxpayers money on locate in Kent propaganda, telling us about the quality and talent that is available in the county yet repeatedly hires from other areas of the country and indeed went on a recruitment drive to Boston, USA to recruit social workers for Thanet one of the county's and indeed country's worst employment areas.
KCC Bonus Payments
KCC paid its top officers more than £188,000 in bonuses over two years, according to figures released for the first time today.
The figures published by KCC as part of their accounts cover the last two financial years and show bonuses totalling nearly £53,000 were paid in 2009-2010.
Nearly three times as much was paid the previous year when senior officers, already on six-figure salaries, shared £135,686 in bonuses.
It has also emerged the council paid more than £180,000 to a private consultant to review its highways department.
Marcus Hobbs was taken on as head of business performance and communications and paid the equivalent of £16,715 a month for less than a year's work.
The bonuses for 2009-2010 were shared between eight senior officers,with the highest given to former chief executive Peter Gilroy who retired in May.
He was paid a bonus of £10,615 and his overall remuneration, including pension contributions, was £299,611.
The previous year, he received a bonus of £31,065 on top of his basic salary of £212,300.
Three others each received bonuses of nearly £8,000 on top of their six figure salaries in 2009-2010.
They were Oliver Mills, managing director of adult social services (£7,875); Amanda Honey, communities director (£7,875) and David Cockburn, economic development director (£7,850).
Geoff Wild, director of law and governance, received a bonus of £6,350, taking his earnings to £141,473 while Kevin Harlock, director of commercial services, received £5,000 making his remuneration for the year £109,199.
Tanya Oliver, strategic director of development and public access, received a bonus of £3,396 to take her earnings to £112,306.
Amanda Beer, director of personnel, received a bonus of £3,880 to take her remuneration for the year to £125,414.
I'm sure as long suffering Kent residents we all noticed how much better things have been for us paying these people vast amounts to manage our County. After all the winter snow fall was cleared promptly and caused minimal disruption, Kent schools were never performing below par according to Dept Children Schools and Families. The county's major roads are pothole free, our motorways remain open at all times and do not suffer from a lack of lorry parking facilities. and of course Kent TV was a rip roaring success, that was way ahead of it's time and if only the stupid residents of Kent had bothered to watch it then it would have been really successful . NOT
