Public outrage at a £500,000 redundancy payment made to the chief executive of a Glasgow-based charity has sparked an online petition for the CEO to donate the money to the local community, which in two days has raised 147 signatures.

Ronnie Saez received a £500,000 pay-off from the Glasgow East Regeneration Agency (GERA) when it merged with a group of charities and wound-up as a separate entity. The Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR) launched an investigation into the payment after media interest. Releasing its report into the matter on Wednesday (16 January), OSCR said that the decision to include a £232,708 discretionary pension augmentation within the payment constituted misconduct by the charity's trustees, although the remainder of the payment was required under law.

OSCR regretted that as the payment had already been made it has "no powers to recoup the funds for use in the charitable sector". 

Press headlines have included the Scottish Daily Record's "Charity chief's half a million pounds pay-off stinks", and the Herald Scotland's "The poverty campaigner who walked away with £500k of poor kids' cash". And the payment has sparked outrage from the public who took to Twitter about the 'golden goodbye' received by Saez.

Now an online petition has been raised by a user named "Jack F." calling for Saez "to repay his inappropriately massive severance package and the money to be used for childcare". The petition claims that the successor agency to GERA, GRA is to shut the only out of school care project in the local area of Parkhead, called Oscars, and calls for Saez to donate to the project.

"Unite the Union Community Branch in the area has been working with local parents to fight to keep Oscars open, and we have all been incensed that there's no money for childcare but there is for 'golden goodbyes'.

"We believe that this money should be used for what it was originally intended, fighting poverty in the East End, not lining executive pockets. Although regulators have no legal power to recoup the money, we believe that if the people of the East End have their say Ronnie will feel under moral pressure to do the right thing. Pay back the money and keep out of school care available in Parkhead!"

With a target of 200 signatures, the petition has in two days raised 147.