IT HAS taken seven months of fighting by The Bolton News to finally receive the full detail of the payments made to former chief executive Paul Najsarek, who quit his job after just five months in charge. Chief reporter Liam Thorp explains how The Bolton News continued to press for the information.

WHEN Bolton Council’s new chief executive stunned his staff and Bolton residents by announcing he would be leaving the post after just five months, it posed several crucial questions:

Why was he leaving?

What had gone wrong during his brief tenure?

Had he fallen out with the political powers-that-be?

Had Mr Najsarek received any form of severance package — paid for by the Bolton taxpayer — after such a short time in post?

After my initial request for information, I was surprised to simply be told that the information I had asked for was personal and could not be disclosed – effectively confirming that some form of payment had been made.

As my colleague Dale Haslam has shown in The Bolton News’ campaign to reveal the names of Bolton councillors who failed to pay council tax on time – we do not take no for an answer.

I decided to make a request to the council under the Freedom of Information Act, asking for full details of any agreed severance packages.

This request was met with a similar response, which stated that the information was exempt from the FOI act because it could “constitute a breach of confidence”.

We have since been told that Mr Najsarek had signed a confidentiality agreement. Following our request, council chiefs were furiously trying to convince him to waive it and allow the information to be released.

REVEALED: Bolton Council’s former chief executive given £90,000 pay-off after just FIVE months' work

'Disgrace' — reaction to Paul Najsarek's £90,000 pay-off after quitting council chief executive role

Council leader Cliff Morris maintains that Mr Najsarek repeatedly refused to allow the information to be disclosed and so we continued to push for the information.

Our next course of action was to ask the council to carry out a formal review of its decision not to grant our FOI request.

I did this at the turn of the year and it began a period of silence from all involved.

It subsequently transpired that the authority was attempting to release the information, but was apparently being blocked by the legal team representing its former chief executive.

However, we did not know this and so our questions continued, backed by opposition councillors who also felt the public had a right to know.

This continued until in April, after another question from the opposition party, Cllr Morris revealed that the information we were seeking would be published in the council’s annual accounts and would be visible for all to see.

To give Cllr Morris credit, he agreed to sit down with me, go through the detail of what we now know to be substantial payments made to Mr Najsarek and answer questions about how and why this all took place.

His answers are featured in today’s article and people will draw their own conclusions about the whole saga.

Many will have deep concerns about the justification of such a huge sum of money being paid to an employee who left his job before he really got started.

There are questions for the council too. People will want to know why no probation period was insisted upon and why Mr Najsarek was not formally obliged to move to the area – an issue which ultimately led to his departure.

Whatever the conclusions you draw – The Bolton News is proud that after months of campaigning and hard work, we have been able to report the figure, in the public interest.