Cressida Dick is clinging on at Scotland Yard in row over whether she should get £500,000 payoff weeks after the Met Police chief was forced out by Sadiq Khan
- London mayor Sadiq Khan is refusing to approve a £500,000 golden handshake
- Home Office cannot search for Cressida Dick’s successor until payoff agreed
- The stand-off comes as Met Police culture comes under magnifying glass
- A report on force’s anti-corruption and vetting procedures is due in two weeks
- It comes as judges rule Met Police crackdown on Everard vigil was unlawful
A row over a £500,000 pay-off for Dame Cressida Dick is delaying her departure and hampering efforts to fill the top job in policing.
A month after the Scotland Yard commissioner was forced out by London mayor Sadiq Khan over a succession of scandals, the pair are yet to agree the terms of her departure.
Sources say Mr Khan is refusing to hand over a settlement worth almost £520,000, despite giving Dame Cressida a two-year extension to her contract in September.
The Home Office cannot begin the process to recruit her successor until a deal is reached and a departure date decided.
The stand-off comes at a time of extraordinary uncertainty, as the force faces an independent review into its culture and standards of behaviour led by Baroness Casey.
London mayor Sadiq Khan is refusing to approve a £500,000 pay-off for Dame Cressida Dick (pictured) – delaying her departure and hampering efforts to fill the top job in scandal-rocked Scotland Yard
Sources say London mayor Sadiq Khan is refusing to hand over a settlement worth almost £520,000, despite giving Dame Cressida a two-year extension to her contract in September
Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary is also due to publish a report on the force’s vetting and anti-corruption measures in the next fortnight.
The turmoil at the Met comes as it continues to investigate the Prime Minister and others over parties breaching lockdown rules.
When former Met commissioner Lord Blair of Boughton was forced to resign by then-mayor Boris Johnson in 2008, he was paid £580,000 for his final eight months in office – more than double his £240,000 salary.
He also received an index-linked pension of £160,000 a year, full compensation for leaving his five-year contract 18 months early, and compensation for losing the use of a flat and a car.
Dame Cressida’s agreed two-year extension came with a £246,109 annual salary and £3,074 benefits.
She could expect a total of just over £519,000 based on the 25 months she had left to serve.
The 61-year-old will also draw from a pension pot worth around £160,000 a year.
The Home Office is said to be growing impatient with the lack of progress since her resignation on February 10.
It has also increased tensions between Mr Khan and Home Secretary Priti Patel, who will ultimately choose Dame Cressida’s successor.
Yesterday, the chairman of the London Assembly police and crime committee, Susan Hall, said: ‘This isn’t some middle management job here, it has been handled so badly.
This could not have come at a worse time for Met officers and Londoners when confidence in police has never been lower.’
A City Hall source said Dame Cressida’s departure date and terms ‘will be agreed in due course’.
A Home Office spokesman said: ‘The priority is to select the very best person for the job, who will deliver for our capital, keeping its people and communities safe.’ He added that her departure was a ‘matter for her and the mayor’s office’.
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