A TOP politician has said former council chief executive Bryn Parry-Jones was “obviously suffering from a mid-life crisis” by taking on his tax-payer funded Porsche and the authority would have been “better spending money on getting him some professional help”.

County councillor and blogger Jacob Williams was tipped off that the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government Eric Pickles made reference to the disgraced chief during a House of Commons committee on Monday (February 2).

Conservative MP for Crawley Henry Smith asked Mr Pickles about council tax rises and potential freezes.

In response to his answer, as stated in the Parliamentary record of proceedings Hansard, Mr Smith said: “A recent TaxPayers Alliance study identified that the chief executive of Pembrokeshire council had a Porsche funded at a cost of some £90,000 and that, in Camden, £3.25 million had been spent on so-called gagging orders of employees who were leaving. What more can be done to bear down on these unnecessary costs that burden the taxpayer?”

In reply Mr Pickles: “Transparency is the order of the day. It is sad that the kind of information available to English taxpayers is not available to their Welsh counterparts. With regard to Mr Bryn Parry Jones’s Porsche, if any chief executive puts in a Porsche as part of their terms of contract, I think that is a cry for help. The chap is obviously suffering from a mid-life crisis, and the council would have been better spending money on getting him some professional help.”