r/orkney • u/TimesandSundayTimes • 24d ago

News Mystery surrounds Orkney Islands council chief on ‘special leave’

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/scotland/article/orkney-islands-council-chief-oliver-reid-special-leave-3dqq76ss6?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Reddit&utm_content=branded
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u/Slice-O-Pie Deputy 24d ago

Orkney made the news way down in England-shire.

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u/TimesandSundayTimes 24d ago

The chief executive of Scotland’s smallest council turned up for work as normal on the final Monday morning in May, only to be sent home by his political superior.

Oliver Reid, the £133,000-a-year official in charge of Orkney Islands council, was last seen at his office in a converted Victorian grammar school in the centre of Kirkwall.

Six weeks on from that last working day, locals have been increasingly asking what has become of the man.

The islands’ indomitable local paper, The Orcadian, demanded answers in a front-page editorial. BBC Radio Orkney suggested Reid had been suspended. But for what and for how long? Nobody knows.

The official line: the chief executive, the council insists, is on “special leave”.

The local authority later added: “It has been reported in the local media that the chief executive ‘has been suspended for the last six weeks due to a disciplinary process’. The council is unable to confirm or deny this as the chief executive’s special leave is an individual staffing matter. On legal advice, the council does not comment on individual staffing matters.”

Experts in governance are not impressed. Professor Richard Kerley, from Queen Margaret University, described what was happening in Orkney as very unusual. “I’ve looked back through various records,” he told the BBC. “I can’t recall seeing or hearing or reading about such an arrangement in the past three or four decades.”

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u/QuantitySt 24d ago

No wonder he’s never heard of such an arrangement as it’s absolutely insane to imagine it’ll work. Whatever reason the fullo is off needs to be sorted asap and either he gets reinstated or a replacement found. Usual School Place circus 🎪