Deadline News report:

A cash-strapped Scottish council spent £17,500 to recruit a ‘Transformational Change Manager’ – who was then paid more than £70,000 a year.

The “extraordinary” payment was part of almost £53,000 spent by Edinburgh Council on head-hunting fees in order to fill four management roles.

Recent budget cuts at the council include reducing funding for dozens of charitable organisations, making cuts to the city’s library services and a proposed loss of around 1,200 public sector jobs.

You can read the full story here. 

I am a journalist and author. I am a journalist at the UK edition of WIRED magazine. In 2015, my first book Freedom of Information: A Practical Guide for UK Journalists, was published. My second book Reed Hastings: Building Netflix, was published in March 2020. I created FOI Directory in 2012 and have maintained it in my spare time ever since.