MORE than £330,000 has been paid out in gagging clauses to people leaving Cumbria police.

The county's constabulary has confirmed it had spent £334,511.44 on settlement agreements for the employees when they agreed to depart between 2011 and 2015.

The controversial contracts, which were known as compromise agreements until 2013, provided each officer with an enhanced severance package providing they agree to a set of strict conditions.

Usually, these include signing away the right to talk about work matters after they leave or revealing the true nature of their departure.

Jonathan Isaby, chief executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance, a pressure group set up to scrutinise spending from the public purse, was critical of the move.

He said: "These arrangements are not only an extra burden on taxpayers, but there is also a danger that they can be used to cover up incompetence and wrong doing.

"At a time when every police force is having to find savings and police officers are facing pay freezes or worse, these payments will be particularly hard to justify."

Information revealed under the Freedom of Information Act shows that one employee received an undisclosed sum of money in exchange for a signing a settlement agreement in 2011 followed by a further three in 2012.

Some six more received extra money for their silence as part of their contracts in 2013 followed by one in 2014 and another in 2015.

Cumbria Constabulary declined to provide the exact amounts paid to the 12 employees in question between the 2011/12 financial year and 2014/15 - stating the confidentiality clause within the watertight agreements actually prevented disclosure of the sum and could lead to legal action being taken against Chief Constable Jerry Graham.

A spokesman said the force would not comment on individual cases, but confirmed each settlement agreement was assessed by its legal services department before contracts were issued.

"We can confirm that that majority of the payments referred to relate to payments that employees were legally entitled to receive.

"This could for instance be where the employee was entitled to redundancy payment, payment in lieu of notice and any outstanding annual leave.”

The use of settlement agreements for the former Cumbria police staff comes just a week after it was revealed that local authorities across England and Wales have deployed the contracts more than 17,500 times in the last five years, at a cost to the taxpayer of £226.7 million.

Most were reported to have contained gagging orders preventing the employees from criticising their town hall bosses.

Carlisle MP John Stevenson said that confidentiality agreements can have a legitimate role to play when public servants leave their jobs and that without knowing the details surrounding each case it was difficult to comment.

But he added: "There would be an issue if that kind of money was being paid out to cover embarrassment. It works out at about £25,000 per officer.

"It's a figure that certainly merits further investigation because any use of public money has to be for the right reasons. It's something that should be thoroughly thought through and done for the right reasons, and not to cover up the mistakes of others."