Children's commissioner defends decision to re-hire former deputy after £134,000 payoff

It has emerged that Sue Berelowitz took voluntary redundancy from her role at the Office of the Children’s Commissioner last month.

The role carried a salary of £99,333 and also involved chief executive duties, which will now be handled directly by children’s commissioner Anne Longfield.

The OCC has confirmed that Berelowitz will now remain employed as a consultant, working at a rate of £960 a day for nine days a month, the equivalent of £103,680 a year, until November on its inquiry into child sex abuse in the family environment.

Her payoff and rehiring as a consultant sparked controversy over the weekend. It is understood that a curb on public employee pay-outs will be included in tomorrow's Queen’s Speech.

An OCC spokesman has defended the decision.

He said Berelowitz has been rehired due to her experience in working with child abuse charities and survivor groups and her work already carried out on the inquiry.

"She was hired as she was part way through an inquiry into sexual abuse in the home, which means talking to survivor organisations and organisations such as the NSPCC and it felt that she was critical for that to continue," he added.

"Her knowledge of the subject and expertise in speaking to the organisations involved is important."

The two-year inquiry, which was announced last July, is due to run until November this year and is looking at the scale and nature of abuse by family members as well as the role of support services, including social work. 

Its aim is to make recommendations on improving the identification and prevention of child sexual abuse as well as improvements around police and social care responses and support.

Peter Saunders, founder of The National Association for People Abused in Childhood (NAPAC) has backed the OCC’s decision to rehire Berelowitz as a consultant.

He said: “Sue Berelowitz is highly knowledgeable and deeply committed to child protection.

“Homing in on a financial arrangement which, on the face of it, could probably have been handled better, was a gift to those who don't want us doing what we do, but in the scheme of things we are not talking millions and whilst I appreciate it is public money, much more public money is wasted on things infinitely less important than child protection and getting to the truth of how society has failed to protect its children.”

The OCC spokesman added that Berelowtiz’s role was made redundant following the Children and Families Act 2014, which did not have a requirement on the body to appoint a deputy children’s commissioner.

He said that savings made through the redundancy of the deputy children’s commissioner role “will be recouped from the next financial year onwards” and that Berelowitz’s consultancy fee is being met through its project budget.