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A disgraced council chief executive who has been paid his full £135k-a-year salary for six and a half years for not turning up for work should be dismissed without notice, councillors have been told.

We have obtained a leaked copy of a report to be discussed by Caerphilly council on Thursday into the employment of the authority's chief officer Anthony O'Sullivan.

The report describes Mr O'Sullivan's conduct as "grossly negligent", says he "operated to his own code" and recommends his dismissal.

Mr O'Sullivan was first suspended in March 2013 after he acted "unlawfully", in the words of the district auditor, through his actions in trying to engineer a pay rise for himself from £132,000 to £158,000 a year.

Details of the pay rises were unknown to most councillors, and only came into the public domain after a leak to WalesOnline. After a public outcry his pay rise was reduced to £5,000.

The suspension was later changed to "special leave" and Mr O'Sullivan has been off work on full pay ever since - a total of around 2,406 days off work.

It was not until last year that Caerphilly council finally appointed a delegated independent person (DIP) to compile a report for the authority recommending what action to take against Mr O'Sullivan.

The resulting report, which will be considered in a private meeting on Thursday by members of Caerphilly council, recommends dismissing the chief executive.

During the last six-and-a-half years, Mr O'Sullivan has received nearly £900,000 in salary. In total, including legal costs and payments to two other officers who were given payouts, the cost has been estimated at between £4m and £6m.

The DIP’s report heavily criticises Mr O'Sullivan's conduct.

It says “the chief executive deliberately and wilfully breached his contract; the code of conduct was incorporated into his contract of employment.

"The chief executive in his oral evidence made it clear that he paid no regard to the code and its provisions as he operated according to his own ‘higher’ code.

“Also, his approach to governance issues, particularly in relation to his own pay and remuneration, appears to me to be grossly negligent (if not reckless), as was his approach to the information given to [the council] in reports.

“In light of this, the DIP recommended that the chief executive is dismissed without notice for gross misconduct.”

A two-day hearing of a committee took place last month at which members heard from the DIP and Mr O’Sullivan. They agreed to dismiss him.

In 2014 Mr O’Sullivan, together with two other senior council officers – deputy chief executive Nigel Barnett and head of legal services Daniel Perkins – were charged with the criminal offence of misconduct in a public office.

Later a judge dismissed the charges.

Mr Barnett and Mr Perkins received severance packages in 2017. But Mr O’Sullivan has continued to be on gardening leave.

In a public interest report into the pay rises before the trio were suspended, Anthony Barrett, the Assistant Auditor General for Wales, outlined what they had done wrong.

He wrote: “I have concluded that the decision by the senior remuneration committee on September 5, 2012, to approve the recommended pay structure set out in the chief executive’s report to that committee was unlawful.”

Mr Barrett went on to conclude that the meeting had been conducted unlawfully because it had not been properly advertised, that the agenda had not been made available for public inspection, that certain officers who stood to benefit were present throughout, that no declarations of interest were made, that the report recommending the increases was written by Mr O’Sullivan, a beneficiary who gave advice on a matter in which he had a pecuniary interest, and that the full range of options put forward by a consultancy hired to look at senior pay had not been included in the chief executive’s report.