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His departure in March was part of cuts designed to save money.

But now he's been seized upon as an example of public sector excess.

The reason - his retirement appears to have been both lucrative, and brief.

On 31 March this year he took early retirement at the age of 54 from his job as Director of People at Northumberland County Council.

He left with a £400,000 payout including his annual salary of £140,000 and a £266,000 top-up to his pension pot.

And then on 12 April, his retirement ended as he accepted a job as .

He's now earning between £110,000 and £140,000 in his new post.

The emergence of those figures now means , and attracted the attention of the Government.

is on a mission to curb public sector excess, and he says such payouts are wrong.

He said: "It's not right for people to retire from the public sector with a huge pay-off then cash in with another six-figure salary elsewhere at the taxpayers' expense."

And the reaction in Northumberland has been equally outraged.

The council is desperately short of money. . There could be 1,000 job cuts.

So the trade unions think Trevor Doughty's payoff would have been better spent on saving jobs and services.

They are also worried that it will be used as more evidence of gold-plated public sector pensions.

Tony Martin from Unison says his members won't be getting big payouts if they lose their jobs. Most can only hope to retire with a pension of around £5,000 after 40 years' service.

They don't want Trevor Doughty's case to be used to attack those kind of pensions.

But Northumberland's Conservative group leader, Peter Jackson, does believe the rules must be changed to prevent the same thing happening again.

He believes large public sector pensions need to be tackled, and he does not see why council taxpayers should have shell out for generous settlements to people who can go on to now earn six-figure salaries.

But actually, the council says the deal will save taxpayers' money.

They say the payments were part of Trevor Doughty's contract, and were approved by councillors and auditors. They have no control over what he does once he leaves.

But they do say the management restructure which saw his departure is saving £1.2m a year. And one of the only ways to persuade highly-paid managers to leave is to offer early retirement packages.

And Trevor Doughty?

I have e-mailed him, but as yet there's been no response. He signed a confidentiality agreement when he left Northumberland so perhaps that's not surprising.

Cornwall though think they are getting good value for money out of him.

, their children's services heavily criticised by Ofsted.

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I suspect not all council taxpayers in Northumberland will agree.

And with the Government reviewing public sector pensions, the payout for Trevor Doughty may be amongst the last to hit the headlines.

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