Sir, I write in reply to Clr. Jacob Williams's letter in last week's paper. What Clr. Williams conveniently forgot to mention in his letter was that prior to the full council meeting and before any decision was made, we all received two sets of comprehensive and detailed legal advice from representatives of the Local Government Association and from specialist employment law solicitors Eversheds. Both sets of advice were of the same opinion that employees, regardless of position (we must remember that the chief executive was still an employee of the council), were entitled to employment law protection and that conducting the debate in open forum would potentially prejudice the council's position with regard to any future actions and could undermine the legal process and open the council to further damaging claims. The second piece of relevant advice from both solicitors was that in their opinion there was little chance of success in bringing a claim for misconduct, let alone gross misconduct, against the chief executive. It was after careful consideration of the situation, taking careful note of the legal process and advice and the potentially damaging costs that could be incurred that the decision was made. As was pointed out in the debate, we could have spent over £200,000 on a disciplinary process with little chance of success and still ended up in the same situation in six-nine months time having had to pay the CE his full salary during that time. Clearly, we had a choice to either agree to an immediate settlement which brings final closure to the matter or risk incurring significant extra costs and delay. The majority chose to agree to settle now. This case will no doubt be aired for some time as it suits certain members for purely political reasons. However, the decision has been made and the council can now move on and concentrate on delivering services to the people of Pembrokeshire.

Clr. David Pugh, PCC Kilgetty Begelly ward