Seems like a pay -off to me :

“Rotherham Council chief executive Martin Kimber has been paid £26,000 to leave the authority two months early – with his investigation into stolen child abuse files uncompleted.

Mr Kimber received £26,666 to leave the authority on October 31 rather than staying on until his originally planned departure date at the end of December.  He left his role to allow new chief executive Jan Ormondroyd to start in November.

When giving evidence under oath to MPs in September, Mr Kimber had insisted he would take no compensation for leaving the council in the wake of the Jay report, which found at least 1,400 children had been abused in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013.

Mr Kimber, who was paid £160,000-per-year, was asked if he would be taking compensation after giving his resignation with three months notice. He said: “There is no compensation. I have had no such discussion and neither would I, just for the record.”

But Rotherham Council insisted Mr Kimber had ‘received no pay-off’ but was paid in lieu of notice. A spokeswoman also confirmed Mr Kimber’s investigation into the conduct of Rotherham Council workers in relation to issues raised in the Jay report had not been completed.

The chief executive had been asked by council leader Paul Lakin to carry out a ‘thorough internal investigation’ into the alleged theft of files from a locked council office in 2002, as well as the disappearance of four years of meeting minutes about child abuse issues.

A Rotherham Council spokeswoman said: “It was agreed in September between the authority and Mr Kimber that he would leave at the end of December – serving the usual three month notice period. However, he decided to leave his position two months early, with effect from October 31, to enable the new chief executive to start. The authority continues to look into the matters raised in the Jay Report.”