The two top bosses of Bristol Waste who left suddenly on the same day last summer received golden handshakes topping a combined £125,000, it can be revealed. Managing director Tony Lawless and finance director Adam Henshaw parted company in July 2022 with Bristol City Council’s waste firm, which ducked questions at the time as to whether the pair had received a payoff.
There was no announcement of the pair’s departure, even to many councillors, and it only came to light when it was mentioned briefly at a meeting of the authority’s audit committee being covered by the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) eight days after they formally resigned as directors. Now, the council has been forced to disclose the redundancy payments to both former executives in its statutory annual 2022/23 draft statement of accounts, published this week.
They show that Mr Lawless, who was in charge of the company, was paid £62,317 as “compensation for loss of office” while Mr Henshaw actually received more, £65,155 – a combined total of £127,472 that ultimately falls on city council taxpayers as the authority wholly owns the firm. The company has still not explained why they left or why the payments were made, other than saying at the time that Mr Lawless, who had been in the role for four years, had “stepped down” and Mr Henshaw had “left the business to be free to pursue other opportunities”.
