Council chief in line for six-figure payout despite 'forced' resignation... as further heads likely to roll

The council boss forced to quit over the Grenfell Tower disaster is set to receive a six-figure pay-off, The Telegraph has been told.

Nicholas Holgate, who was paid £193,000-a-year as chief executive of Kensington and Chelsea council, announced his resignation on Wednesday night a week after the catastrophe.

The £150,000 a year  head of the housing management company that ran Grenfell Tower is also under renewed pressure to quit after Theresa May said the first act of Kensington’s new council boss will be to “look at” how his organisation was run.

In a statement, Mr Holgate accused Sajid Javid, the Cabinet minister in charge of local government, of interfering to force his dismissal.

“On Tuesday 20 June, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government required the Leader of the Council to seek my resignation,” said Mr Holgate in a statement.

Sources have told The Telegraph that Mr Holgate will be entitled to compensation for losing his job, understood to be equivalent to at least six months’ pay that covers his half-year notice period. That equates to about £100,000.

It is not clear if Mr Holgate could attempt to bring a legal action over the alleged ministerial interference. Sharon Shoesmith who was sacked by the then Education Secretary Ed Balls over the Baby P scandal was subsequently awarded £679,452 after she successfully sued for unfair dismissal.

Kensington and Chelsea council has been roundly criticised for its slow response to the tragedy - it has been accused of being ‘invisible’ on the ground - while a series of official  investigations, including a criminal inquiry, continue into what went wrong.

Mr Holgate, a Cambridge graduate and former HM Treasury official, insisted he wanted to remain in post but had been forced to quit. “Despite my wish to have continued, in very challenging circumstances, to lead on the executive responsibilities of the Council, I have decided that it is better to step down from my role, once an appropriate successor has been appointed.”

He added: “If I stayed in post, my presence would be a distraction.”

The Justice4Grenfell campaign welcomed his  resignation.

Yvette Williams, a spokeswoman for the group, said: “He [Mr Holgate] wasn’t left with any alternative, I think it was the right thing for him to do, the community had been completely abandoned by the local authority.”

David Lammy, the Labour MP whose friend Khadija Saye was killed in the fire, said although Mr Holgate’s resignation was welcomed, it was not enough and that Nicholas Paget-Brown, the elected Conservative leader of the council, should also quit.

Mr Lammy said: “This is a circumstance in which many people should consider their position and step aside. The leader of the council should go. The political leadership has been poor and he [Paget-Brown] should go. He has lost the faith of the people on the street.”

Mr Paget-Brown is believed to have offered his resignation at a meeting of the council cabinet but it was rejected. One source said no senior councillor wanted to take the role on.

Robert Black, the chief executive of Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (TMO), which was in charge of Grenfell Tower on behalf of the council, is also under huge and renewed pressure to quit.

Residents had repeatedly voiced their concerns that Grenfell Tower was “a disaster waiting to happen” but they were ignored.

Mrs May, when pressed on the TMO, told MPs on Thursday: “The issue of the tenant management organisation... has come across loud and clear to me from my conversations with local residents. 

“One of the first acts of the new chief executive of Kensington and Chelsea council will be to look at the tenant management organisation and any action that needs to be taken.”