Partygate council boss now earned more while on discretionary leave than most Brits earn in year

Kate Josephs has been off from leading Sheffield City Council for nine weeks since it emerged she held drinks session during lockdown

Kate Josephs, former head of Covid-19 Taskforce at Cabinet Office (@katejosephs / Twitter)

A council boss who threw a lockdown-breaking party has now been paid more while absent from work under investigation than the average Brit takes home in an entire year.

Kate Josephs – who leads cash-strapped Sheffield City Council – has been on discretionary leave for nine weeks after it was revealed she hosted a drinks gathering for up to 40 people in Whitehall in December 200.

Because her annual salary is £190,000, it means she has now pocketed £32,885 while she has been off. The average UK full time salary is £31,285, according to the Office for National Statistics.

Crucially, there are growing suggestions that the council’s investigation into Josephs’ conduct could now drag on for months to come - with her remaining off work on full pay - because it is unlikely to report back before a full police investigation into parties in Downing Street and Whitehall has itself been finished.

The authority’s Labour leader, Terry Fox, has repeatedly refused to answer questions on the issue raising further questions about the transparency of the process.

Lord Paul Scriven, the council’s former leader and now a Liberal Democrat peer, said the fact the situation remained unresolved was intolerable to many in the city who had followed all coronavirus restrictions.

“It's absolutely galling to people that we as taxpayers are funding this person,” he said. “It is not acceptable.”

He added: “This is now dragging on for two reasons. One, the lack of leadership by the senior councillors to tell Ms Josephs she no longer enjoys their confidence. And two, because of Ms Josephs’ refusal to do the decent thing, accept that her behaviour was below the standard expected of a chief executive, admit that she misled the people of Sheffield until minutes before she was exposed, and offer her resignation.”

He said that suggestions that leading councillors – who are understood to like Ms Josephs – hope the fury will die down if they drag their heels long enough were ill-founded.

“People made huge sacrifices during these lockdowns – they did not see loved ones who were dying – and they not about to forgive or forget her behaviour,” said Lord Scriven.

The breach of rules caused particular ire both in the South Yorkshire city and across the country because, at the time she threw the party, Ms Josephs had been leading the government’s Covid-19 Taskforce – the very team tasked with actually making lockdown rules.

When asked by local journalists if she had attended parties in Downing Street, she repeatedly denied it – something that was technically true because the party she hosted was actually next door in Whitehall.

To add insult to injury for many, she is now off work using a kind of discretionary leave generally only given to council staff dealing with life-altering situations such as the death of a child.

Sheffield City Council and council leader Terry Fox did not immediately respond to The Independent’s request for comment.