Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Merron on 9 February (HL13391), why the Chief Executive of South Yorkshire Integrated Care Board received contractual redundancy pay before the approval of the national model voluntary redundancy scheme by the Treasury in November 2025.

As referred to in the answer to HL15722 and HL15723, the redundancy exercise arose from structural reform reducing the number of integrated care boards (ICBs) from 42 to 26, which resulted in the removal of a number of Chief Executive roles.

Contractual National Health Service redundancy arises where a role is removed as part of an organisational restructuring and the postholder’s employment is terminated on a compulsory basis, in line with their contractual NHS terms and conditions of service. This applies, for example, where an ICB is abolished or merged and the Chief Executive role therefore ceases to exist.

In contrast, the national model voluntary redundancy scheme applies only where an employer chooses to offer staff the option of a voluntary exit. These contractual redundancy arrangements pre-date the later development of the national model voluntary redundancy scheme which required HM Treasury’s approval before it could be offered by employers.