Jan 2009 15

Cut back? But everyone loves council Chief Executives…say council Chief Executives7

There's one of those classic news stories today that raises your eyebrows and then explains itself all in one sentence. The kind that starts off "that's politically interesting" and ends up feeling slightly more predictable than "dog bites postman". This time, it's all to do with Eric Pickles' laudable proposals to help councils reduce the number of high-paid Chief Executives.

Here's the first bit:

Conservative plans to reduce the number of council chief executives lack support among grassroots Tories…

Sounds interesting, no? If there is a genuine movement amongst Tory councillors to support the existence of this well-paid (and rising) class of senior executives in local government, many of whom earn more than the Prime Minister, then that is a serious issue. Who has revealed this startling split?

…the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives & Senior Managers has claimed.

Ah.

This isn't just dog bites postman, it's "Postman likes being bitten by dog and wants more of it, says dog".

Still, let's look at the story – what's the detail? Actually, there is none – it's literally just on their say so – there are no numbers, estimates or even an anonymous survey. As it happens I have spoken to a lot fo councillors (and not just Tories) who support this plan to the hilt or would go further and abolishing the post altogether to make clear that the elected council are meant to run the local authority. Interestingly, even the quote from the group, which calls itself SOLACE (presumably in reference to their shared emotion when the pay cheques land on the doormat), is notably vague:

"On the one hand you have got Eric Pickles [the shadow communities secretary, saying this] and on the other you have got local Conservatives saying nothing of the sort," said Graham Taylor, director of communications at Solace.

Leaving aside that there even is a director of communications for SOLACE, it's interesting to note he isn't even willing to actually say that "local Conservatives oppose this", just to imply it. Boil it down and what have we really got? The group representing Council Chief Executives releasing their own, vaguely worded, totally unsubstantiated opinion that local councillors actually all like them really. As Cilla Black would say, surprise, surprise.

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  • pointing out your hypocracy

    Surely if you are really the taxpayers alliance, you can’t seriously want to let Councillors run Councils without guidance. thats a recipe for the implementation of every half baked idea going and HIGHER TAXES. So well done, save £200K on the CEO, spend £5million on half baked nonsense.

  • mystified by the above comment

    Alternatively we could elect councillors with good ideas? Guidence doesn’t have to come from people who are trying to justify their own salaries.

  • Mark Wallace

    Steve Robson (aka “pointing out your hypocracy[sic]“)
    Three points:
    i) I want councillors to be in charge of councils – they are meant to be democratically controlled bodies. All too often the bigging up of the Chief Executive position from the Town Clerk that it used to be has also involved councillors backing off, abdicating responsibility and acting like they are simply watchdogs checking on what the officers decide to do. That’s not good enough.
    ii) There’s a massive difference between councillors having “guidance” as you put it and spending such huge amounts on so many senior staff who have become so unaccountable.
    iii) You describe our view as “a recipe for the implementation of every half baked idea going and HIGHER TAXES”. Unfortunately, Steve, that’s what we’ve got at the moment – despite (or in many cases, because of) all these costly senior executives.
    Given that you are a council employee, I can see why you are so bothered about the idea that your sector is wasteful or inefficient, but the facts are inescapable.

  • Roger Baker

    The problem is in the name.
    These public sector people call themselves “Chief Executives” because the want to be compared with private sector CEs and enjoy the same level of salary and perks.
    In fact, private sector CEs spend about 75% of their time on sales & marketing (ie persuading customers to buy their goods or services) and only about 25% of their time on spending and administration.
    Public sector CEs, on the other hand, have no need to develop new innovative services or persuade us to buy what they offer(we go to gaol if we don’t!)so all they do is decide how to spend our hard-earned cash.
    Our County Council CE here in Suffolk (population a mere 650,000) gets £218,000 plus about £80,000 in pension and perks for simply admnistering the spending of our money.

  • jeff newton

    I live in Bromsgrove in Worcestshire.
    Bromsgrove District Council is officially rated as the second worst run local authority in the entire country
    The Chief Executive has recently been awarded a 15% increase in salary and the elected councillors (of all parties) have just voted themselves a 100% increase in expenses.
    The snoughts are deep within the trough here in Bromsgrove and likely to stay so.
    No one seems to care how these self serving clowns are exploiting us.
    Protest is useless.
    The whole system regulates and governs itself. Complaints are arrogantly dismissed.
    Complain about abuse of planning regulations, partiality, misconduct, cronyism, and corruption (as I did) and your complaint will be investigated by the head of the very department you are complaining about.
    Jeff Newton

  • Steve Robson

    Mark Wallace
    Congratulations on pointing out my spelling error. Unfortunately, I went to school when standards were lower , despite taxes being higher. Maybe things have improved, not that you’d accept that.
    3 points back from me:
    1. I am not a council employee, though I have been in the past. I do acknowledge there is inefficiency in all organisations, public and private, and I have done more to combat it than you or anyone in your organisation. By the way, inefficiency is not defined as doing stuff you don’t want to do. I didn’t want us to invade Iraq, but that doesn’t make it inefficiency.
    2. Maybe we should elect good Councillors as your other correspondent says, but we can’t control that as individuals. They often spend to get re-elected rather than focusing on the longer term, so we need good CEO’s and other officials to get value for money.
    3. The facts about waste and inefficiency are not inescapable. You do not provide evidence, you provide sensationalist anecdote. If your organisation actually focussed on real ways to reduce tax rather than what makes good headlines, we could move forward together and you would be respected as a thinktank rather than a tabloid lobby group. So for example, what about imposing unitary local government throughout the country, that would save vastly more than your 10% cuts in so called rich list pay or stopping Mayors having the odd £200 meal to entertain guests, but its not so much of a jolly jape to put forward is it.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/DonaldG Don G

    Part of the problem of Chief Exec salaries is the archaic payscale system operating in the heavily unionised local government sector. With the exploding, multiple layers of management all requiring higher pay-scales than the level below them, it’s no wonder the number and level of £100k+ “jobs” are burgeoning.
    I say get rid of the Assistant Managers, Senior Managers, Assistant & Deputy Heads of Service, Assistant Directors, Associate Directors, Assistant & Deputy Chief Execs, and all their PAs.
    Until the last 5 years when I started working with the public sector, I never before appreciated how status conscious and PC the staff are, and I continue to be astounded that colleagues know each other’s salary! It’s like something out of Animal Farm.
    The whole structure needs to be smashed, and the taxpayer put back to the top of the priority list, with the elected representatives wielding some power.