Nov 2009 05

Two PAs for Coventry Council executive5

The chief executive of Coventry City Council has been accused of failing to lead by example in today’s Coventry Telegraph after hiring himself a second personal assistant whilst driving administration cuts through the rest of the authority.

Secretary Martin Reeves, who reportedly brings in a cool £175,000 per year for his duties at Coventry, has been accused of hypocrisy by one elected member who questioned just how necessary it was for the chief exec of a council to have the support of two full-time assistants when the CEOs of many private companies happily suffice with one. Indeed, it’s probably worth pointing out that there are chief executives at bigger councils who bring home less money and make do with one secretary.

Of course this is made all the more insulting, not only by the fact its costing taxpayers mid-recession, but also because it’s Reeves himself who has ordered a cull of backroom staff as part of a plan to save £10million over the next year.

Though obviously it’s heartening to hear of a council attempting to streamline by rooting out unnecessary staff costs in order to protect frontline services, stories like this inevitably breed resentment and suspicion as, once again, it appears that rules don’t apply to the higher echelons of the local government executive whom people expect – quite rightly –to set an example, cutting their own costs in line with other reforms at the authority.

One extra salary might not be cataclysmic in terms of Coventry City Council’s budget, but there’s no doubt that this appointment can be viewed heavy-handed and insensitive, and a chief executive who had a hands-on empathetic relationship with staff and taxpayers alike would certainly have thought twice before expanding their own personal empire.

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  • Jack

    If you had the skills to be a Cheif Exec you would quite quickly realise how much work is involved in running a chief exec’s office. This guy’s PAs aren’t there just to answer phones and fetch him his lunch (the image you’ll be wanting to put across). They will also deal with complaints, deal with the media, and deal with enquries for information relating to the organisation from organisations with nothing better to do such as yourselves.
    Your headline should read: ‘Coventry Council Executive shows great restraint in only hiring 2 PAs’ as that is closer to the truth.
    Oh sorry forgot……..you’re not actually interested in the truth. Because if you were skilled in investigating a story to find the actual facts then you’d be real journalists, and not whatever you call yourselves at the moment.

  • DAve

    Quite agree with the above!!

  • Dave Thompson

    Jack and Dave – Are you saying that these council CEOs have more on their plates than most FTSE 100 CEOs? I somewhat doubt it!

  • Unbiased

    Dave Thompson – I presume that you have been at one time or another a Chief Executive of a local authority and also a FTSE 100 CEO and are therefore able to compare the two roles. Or are you just making an ill-informed wild guess?
    I don’t work at Coventry, so can’t comment, but it is the case that in some cases, the Chief Executive has his/her own department that might deal with things of a “corporate” nature, like dealing with complaints, FOI and media requests etc. In such cases, it might be necessary to take on extra staff. However, it is not necessarily extra staff, just staff within the Chief Executive’s Dept that would be elsewhere in other authorities.
    Of course, it could be that the Chief Exec at Coventry has a huge ego and just wants as many staff in his/her empire but, personally, I doubt it.

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