Structured settlement to former Media Director was lawful, CM tells Parliament

A payment of £664,000 to the then Director of Media, flagged by the former Principal Auditor in his 2018/19 report, was rooted in contractual obligations and lawful, Chief Minister Fabian Picardo told Parliament, describing the criticism in the report as “jaundiced, partial and legally flawed”.

The former auditor said in the report that the payment to Clive Golt in April 2025 was made even though his contract did not stipulate the payment of a gratuity on termination, adding his requests for information on the payment had gone unanswered.

But on Wednesday, as the debate on the audit motion resumed in Parliament, Mr Picardo said the payment had been approved by the Office of the Chief Secretary, processed by the Treasury and notified as normal to the Principal Auditor.

He rejected any suggestion that No.6 Convent Place had failed to respond to audit inquiries and said emails were answered within days, adding that to suggest otherwise was to mislead the House.

The payment consisted of two components including a gratuity of 25% of salary per year of service, as provided in employment agreements dated 2013, 2017 and 2021, and overtime compensation for hours worked over more than a decade but never claimed.

In the period between 2010 and 2013, the gratuity had already been paid annually, Parliament heard.

The overtime was calculated at 50% of basic salary from July 2010 to June 2023, adjusted for a deduction of income tax.

“It should be clear that this was not a discretionary handout,” Mr Picardo said.

“This was a structured settlement, grounded in contractual precedent and appropriate comparative practice.”

Mr Picardo said Mr Golt - he did not refer to him by name, having criticised the former auditor for identifying him by reference to his role – had served the Gibraltar Government for almost 15 years, “often working well beyond contracted hours, and never claimed overtime”.

He was “a person recognised for giving absolute dedication to the role he discharged.”

The total payment was less than Mr Golt would have received had the gratuity been paid annually with interest or overtime claimed regularly, Mr Picardo added.

Mr Picardo said the gratuity system for contract officers had been introduced by the GSD administration, adding it was his government that had ended it for new hires.

He rejected the audit report’s description of the payments as “golden handshakes”, saying this was misleading because such payments were a normal feature of public service retirement provisions.

Mr Picardo said the former Principal Auditor had reached his conclusions after what, by his own admission, was a “cursory review” of ex gratia payments between April 2024 and May 2025.

He had included the criticisms even though the report was for the 2018/19 financial year.

“What auditor does a cursory review of anything?” Mr Picardo said, adding the former auditor had reached “unfair, unfit and half-baked judgements”.

PROCUREMENT

The Chief Minister also rejected the former Principal Auditor’s criticism in the 2018/19 report that the Government’s contracting practices were “uncontrolled”, citing figures and legal advice in defence of the procurement process.

Mr Picardo said that during the audit review period, the Government conducted 270 public tenders and made 214 open awards, which he described as evidence of a system grounded in transparency.

The Chief Minister addressed each of the four contracts highlighted in the audit report.

Mr Picardo said the Northern Defences contract followed a public Expression of Interest due to the heritage and structural complexity of the site, adding there was no public capital expenditure involved and the project attracted significant private investment.

He said a contract for Occupational Health Services was awarded to the only suitable local provider capable of meeting urgent operational needs, adding conflicts of interest were properly declared and managed.

On the EMIS contract for digital health records, Mr Picardo said the payment ensured continuity of the existing NHS platform and the protection of patient data, and that changing providers would have risked service disruption.

Finally, the contract for a Waste Management Facility was procured under an exemption provided for in Regulation 15(1)(b) of the Procurement Regulations 2016, as it was designated a civil contingency project.

Mr Picardo said the Government’s advice from UK counsel Jonathan Fisher, KC, was that the audit report “misrepresents lawful discretion as procedural failure” and that the report failed to reflect evidence already provided to the audit process.

Parliament resumes on Thursday at 11am.