Pressure mounts on Coatbridge College's former principal John Doyle to hand back thousands of pounds
Scotland’s charity regulator says it will take appropriate action over the “highly irregular events” at Coatbridge College following an inquiry into the former principal’s "excessive" pay off.
It comes as MSPs called on John Doyle to return some of his £304,000 severance pay which the public audit committee said was "in excess of the guidelines".
Following an inquiry, the committee has passed a report to Police Scotland while the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR) is conducting an ongoing investigation.
The report says Doyle colluded with the chairman, John Gray to secure "excessive" pay-offs for himself and six other senior managers by deliberately withholding information from those who signed off the deals.
As a registered charity, any excessive payments could amount to the misuse of charitable funds.
A spokesman for OSCR told TFN: “We were happy to give evidence to the committee and note its report on the highly irregular events at Coatbridge College, which we are already investigating.
“We will consider the findings carefully, and the report will inform any enforcement action that we consider is appropriate.
“The report acknowledges that currently we have very limited options for taking action, particularly in relation to the recovery of funds and we welcome its recommendation for additional powers.
The report will inform any enforcement action that we consider is appropriate - OSCR
“We are also working with the College Governance Task Force to improve governance of these charities in future.”
In June, the auditor general Caroline Gardner issued a highly critical report of the severance deals paid out by Coatbridge College, which she said were overly-generous.
MSPs on the public audit committee then undertook their own investigation which was also highly critical of the Doyle and Gray.
Committee convener Paul Martin said: "There is a compelling moral argument for John Doyle to repay the tens of thousands of pounds extra he received from the college.
"The Scottish government provided more than £52 million between 2011/12 and 2013/14 to support the college merger process and most of that money was used to fund voluntary severance schemes.
"It was not provided, however, to allow already highly-paid public servants to feather their own nests at the expense of their colleagues and of their students' education."
The report made key recommendations, including former principal John Doyle repaying money he received "in excess of the guidelines which applied across the college sector" and the college governance task group "learning from the report's findings and taking action to ensure something similar cannot happen again".
A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: “The way in which decisions involving hundreds of thousands of pounds of public money were made at Coatbridge College were completely unacceptable."
