Bradford Council has paid more than £600,000 of public money to departing staff in out-of-court settlements, it has emerged.

The cash has been paid out over an eight-year period to at least 36 former officers, to settle potential tribunal cases or redundancy claims.

The information has been revealed by the Council’s Conservative group, who say the settlements often include controversial ‘gagging clauses’ and that the highest single payout was just shy of £75,000.

Councillor Glen Miller, leader of the Conservative group, said national concerns over the use of gagging clauses in the NHS had prompted him to ask the Council how often they used them.

He said: “City Hall has been awash for some time with rumours about how former staff have been paid off to keep quiet when they have left.

“I have found out that, since 2005, at least 36 payments ranging from just a few hundred pounds to nearly £75,000 have been made to departing officers, with the total surpassing £600,000.

“In light of the Council’s pleas of poverty, I cannot help but think that the Council should not be making payments to departing staff in compensation, but where possible trying to avoid doing the things that make signing these agreements attractive.”

He said the money could have been better spent on care.

But Council leader David Green (Lab) said payouts of this kind were at their worst when the Tories ran City Hall.

He said the Council had used two different types of settlement – Compromise Agreements and COT3s.

He said Compromise Agreements were used “when somebody’s leaving the authority, either voluntarily or not voluntarily, to make sure that we don’t end up at tribunal or anything else”.

He said there had been no such payouts since 2009, but that payouts between 2005 and 2009, when the Tories led the Council, totalled £460,566.

The alternative type of settlement, a COT3, had been used 26 times since 2005, Coun Green said. This included 12 settlements since 2010.

Coun Green said, for confidentiality reasons, he could not discuss why cash would be paid out. He did not know how many of the settlements contained gagging clauses, preventing staff from publicly discussing the agreement terms.

He said: “Do I like that sort of thing? No.”

e-mail: claire.armstrong@telegraphandargus.co.uk