Former Coatbridge College head John Doyle accused of 'talking nonsense'

A former college principal who denied suppressing official advice to secure a huge pay-off will be called back to Holyrood after being accused of "talking nonsense" to MSPs.

John Doyle, the former principal of Coatbridge College, received a six-figure severance package when it merged into New College Lanarkshire.

He defended his actions at the public audit committee last week.

But his claims were contradicted when the committee met again on Wednesday.

The committee will now call Mr Doyle to appear before them for a second time.

Mr Doyle received a 30-month severance deal after he left his £116,000 a year job when Coatbridge merged with two other colleges.

He told the committee last week the severance package was not funded with taxpayers' money and he would not be paying it back.

He also accused Scotland's top public spending watchdog, Auditor General Caroline Gardner, of making an "inaccurate and vexatious" claim that he deliberately withheld Scottish Funding Council (SFC) guidance that no member of staff should receive more than a 12-month pay-off.

But Ms Gardner stood by her statement when she was questioned by the committee - and was backed by six members of the college remuneration committee who confirmed they felt misled.

Ms Gardner said: "Mr Doyle, as principal and accounting officer for the college, had a responsibility to ensure the remuneration committee had the advice it needed.

"In my view, there was a deliberate withholding of information from the people who were charged with making the decision."

Ms Gardner also suggested MSPs should look into creating a new offence after lawyers concluded the apparent obfuscation did not meet the legal definition of fraud.

Committee convener Paul Martin said: "The evidence the committee has heard to this point has led us to agree that John Doyle needs to appear before us again.

"We are determined to carry out a full inquiry into the governance of severance payments at Coatbridge College."

Mr Doyle told the committee last week that the the SFC advice was available on the college intranet.

Conservative MSP Mary Scanlon asked members of Coatbridge College's remuneration committee whether the Auditor General's conclusion that information was withheld was "a fair assessment".

Thomas Keenan replied: "If Mr Doyle seriously thinks that to advise committees appropriately that we should go to the intranet, then quite simply that is absolute nonsense."

He said he was "very concerned that we had been misled" and he sympathised with trade unionists who went "absolutely ballistic" when they learned of the pay-off.

Another remuneration committee member, Paul Gilliver, added: "My view of the income was it went into the common reserve which was applied to the charitable objectives of the college. It came from college resources."

Liberal Democrat MSP Tavish Scott said: "If the money only came from the SFC up to a certain level, and did not come from commercial income, it must have come from college resources which would normally pay for things that go on in classrooms to help the students."

A total of 39 staff left the college at a cost of £1.7m during the merger process.

Of this, £849,842 went to seven senior managers, including Mr Doyle - payments which Ms Gardner has previously said "exceeded the terms of the college's severance scheme".