Title

Sophie Broadfield is one of a growing number of chief executives exiting the civil service to take up a career in local government.The Bath and North East Somerset Council (BANES) chief executive is keen to use her background in policy to solve the big issues facing her local community, using hard evidence and a relentless focus on problem-solving.Broadfield can pinpoint the moment she chose a public service path for her future career, when she was just 17 years old and her father died of a stroke. What mattered at that moment was not his career, his salary or his success, but that he had been a good dad.‘My driver from that point was, why would I go and work for the man to make money? I wanted the effort that I put into work to matter and help improve things in the world,' she says. It also made her realise the importance of a work/life balance.After studying history and politics at Oxford, the civil service graduate scheme offered the variety and values she was looking for. She began her career at the Department for Education, creating the free nursery early education programme for disadvantaged two-year-olds, delivered through local government.‘It just encapsulated the best bits of being a civil servant and working on policy,' Broadfield explains – taking the idea and evidence base and working across government, Parliament and councils to design and deliver it.She ‘wanted to go where all the decisions really get made', so went on to be the head of public service reform at the Treasury before moving to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) where she worked on the Troubled Families programme and the Better Care Fund.She moved ‘because I was getting fed up that the work in the Treasury was all about announcing things but not actually doing them'.At the time, the focus was creating ‘the financial incentives for public services to work together around people with complex problems'.As the Coalition Government morphed into a Conservative Government, she switched to devolution deals.Manchester was already under way, but she led the negotiations to create mayoral combined authorities in the West of England, West Midlands and Liverpool – as well as the North East deal that promptly collapsed.Broadfield says: ‘I think the centralisation of Whitehall is something we should be embarrassed about. Local government has such capacity to shape places and make a difference.'So, she took on local government finance reform – at the time it was business rates retention.While BANES has a financial gap for next year, it has been relatively protected until now due to its commercial income – from the Roman Baths, retail estate and parking – that centres around the 5-6 million tourists that visit each year.While she is a fan of devolved funding, she supports the current Government's devolution to mayors as local government is ‘not big enough' to cope with the swings of tax income and rising demand pressures.Broadfield was at MHCLG when she had her two children and moved to Bath and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) in Bristol. But she was biding her time, waiting for a move to a local government role.‘I did it for two years during Covid, then the job came up at BANES,' she says. That job was director of sustainable communities, a strategy role that suited her skills, moving away from the remoteness of central government.Broadfield was upgraded to executive director before the chief executive role came up last year, following the retirement of former chief, Will Godfrey.While BANES has a financial gap for next year, it has been relatively protected until now due to its commercial income – from the Roman Baths, retail estate and parking – that centres around the 5-6 million tourists that visit each year.‘That means I get to lead an organisation that has the capacity to be really innovative and bold,' Broadfield states.She claims councils should not wait for government diktat, but should be at the forefront of supporting their own communities. ‘The point of the council is to make a difference in our place, not to deliver services… to improve people's lives,' she tells The MJ.In Bath, that means closing the gap between its wealthy and more deprived areas, an issue that has not shifted for the past 20 years. ‘We haven't given it the focus,' she explains.Constantly changing political control in BANES has meant a lack of policy consistency. Some of the big issues – housing, transport, deprivation – have not been fully addressed either.‘I don't know the answer to all of those problems yet, but what I want to create is an environment in the council where we're really harnessing everyone's passion and knowledge.‘The culture I want is one where we get people who have a good idea to have the space to give it a try.'‘What I see… having worked in the Treasury and MHCLG, is areas that get their act together, have cross-party consensus or a long-term political direction… can overcome these problems.‘You just need to be really clear about what the problem is,' she says. ‘You then make a consistent case to government for funding and you don't go away until you've got it.'

Title

LEADERSHIP

Committed to communities

By Heather Jameson | 13 May 2026

Popular articles by Heather Jameson

SUBSCRIBE TO CONTINUE READING

Popular articles by Heather Jameson