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Paul's local government career started early – as a 14-year-old with a Saturday job at Ilford Central Library. What started as a part-time pocket money booster 33 years ago has stood him good stead for a career which has seen him rise through the ranks of the cultural services of councils and roles within the Civil Service to where he is today.

After studying 20th century political history at university, he spent the early part of his career working in Nottinghamshire CC, Bolton MBC, and Manchester City Council in leisure services. By the time he moved to Manchester, in 1987, he was area organiser for cultural services, covering libraries, arts and theatres.

He became assistant chief executive of Cambridgeshire in the early 1990s, joining the council just as the Banham review was announced. He claims the reorganisation was a real opportunity for him, as he was able to work on the review, and by 1997 he was joining the newly-created Peterborough City Council, where he went on to be chief executive.
But it hasn't been local government all the way. Prior to joining Sutton as its chief executive in 2005, Paul worked for the Civil Service as regional director at the Government Office of the South East.

‘I'm a big believer in seeing the public sector as a whole, and local government as part of the public sector,' he says. Nevertheless, he claims that, as much as he enjoyed working for the civil services, it reinforced his belief in local government as the localist part of the public sector.

He is a strong believer in swapping staff between Whitehall and the town hall, and secondments across the two – a recent secondment between the Local Government Association and Sutton, which featured in The MJ, is a good example (see The MJ, 16 April).

Not only does it build up experience, but also a joint understanding.

As it stands, Paul is highly critical of centralism – both on the part of central and local government.
‘Centralism is so deeply ingrained that we celebrated 198 performance indicators as a victory for autonomy.'
He claims the ‘Total place' budgeting programme will ‘challenge the culture of Whitehall', but it has got to be made to work.

It remains to be seen if it can.