‘CASH in paper bags’ was handed over repeatedly for ‘months and months’ to a former Minehead mayor for ‘expenses’ claimed while representing the town council in an employment dispute, councillors were told on Tuesday (July 1).

The town council was holding an extraordinary meeting to comply with its legal requirement to discuss a finding by auditors PKF Littlejohn that it had made an unlawful £25,000 honorarium payment in 2022 to then-mayor Andrew Kingston-James.

Councillors had agreed at the time to make the payment to recognise the work that had been put in by Mr Kingston-James, a human resources consultant, to fight an unfair dismissal claim by a clerk they had sacked.

But the auditors investigated the council’s 2022/23 accounts after a public objection and in May of this year published a public interest report (PIR) which said the authority did not have powers to make such a payment and it was therefore unlawful.

The firm said it would not seek recovery of the money because of the cost of doing so and the fact it had been a one-off occurrence.

Councillors met on Tuesday to receive the report and adopt an action plan which included new policies such as requiring any future proposed payments outside of existing policies to first be reviewed by the council’s internal auditor, a ban on councillors carrying out paid work for the authority, a bar on payments in advance, and to require receipts for any claims.

The meeting lasted 29 minutes, including more than 15 minutes during which the public were allowed to speak and make representations.

Each of the three motions on the meeting agenda was unanimously approved by the 11 councillors without any debate.

Councillors also agreed to take money from general reserves to pay the £33,526.20 costs of the auditor’s investigation in preparing the PIR.

The ‘bags of cash’ claim was made by former town councillor Michael Burke, who was serving in 2022 at the time the honorarium was approved.

Mr Burke said ‘fantasy claims’ were being made to the council clerk at the time and ‘paid in cash in paper bags’.

He said he and another councillor queried the payments time and time again, asking officers: “What is going on, why all these paper bags of money?”

Mr Burke said in total the council paid £34,000 to Mr Kingston-James, including the honorarium, ‘in cash’.

He said the claims included reimbursement for buying paper and ink, yet no receipts were given to the officers.

Mr Burke said: “What happened was illegal, the law was broken, and it was a crime.”

He said equally guilty were the councillors who voted to allow the payments, although he accepted they probably did not realise that they had started to ‘dig a big hole’ for themselves.

Mr Burke said: “Who is to be held accountable for these immoral, huge payments of cash?

“Some people who have spoken to me say they want it paid back by those who perpetrated it.”