Nothing personal but let’s get rid of the chief executive.So says Eric Pickles the government minister for local government. For starters he plans to make it cheaper and quicker but his ultimate goal is to get rid of the bothersome post altogether. What do they do anyway? He and his supporters in central Government think local authority chief executives have been taking the piss with inflated salaries, corporate credit cards and big pay outs to incompetent people who then reappear in another high paid post within the public sector.They have even coined a phrase for it “boomerang chief executives” because however hard you try to throw them out they keep coming back. Pickles as a former council leader knows you don’t need a leader of the council and a chief executive. In fact in most authorities one of them is in charge and the other provides the support. If both think they are running the place then it usually ends in tears. I have some experience of working in a local authority where the chief executive left and they decided to divide the responsibilities, increasing the power of the leader of the council and created a post of head of paid services. The problem was that most of the staff didn’t appreciate the difference between a chief executive and a head of paid services and just treated it as a name change, other agencies viewed it as a down grading of the post and keep saying whose really in charge and the large Departments like Education, Social Services and Environment took it to mean they were free of central control. The experiment didn’t last. Following a number of critical reports about the lack of a corporate approach the post was re-established with a new chief executive and a mantra of “one organisation”. Recently there have been a number of examples where the relationship between the leader of the council and senior officers has been strained due to the enthusiasm of members to outsource services and enter into commercial contracts with some big boys. Their motivation was to save money without having to lose popularity with the voters which would result if the alternative was to close libraries, day centres and hostels or take home helps away from frail elderly people. Members don’t like being told what they can and can’t do by unelected officers especially if they suspect that they are simply trying to protect personal empires. Yet far more local authorities than will admit it have ended up in multi million pound long term contracts which have been oversold and under delivered. Contracts which tie local authorities into services they no longer need or want and where short term financial gains have been bought at the cost of loss of control. It is the chief executive who is expected to mediate between the political objectives and the business reality. It is the chief executive who is required to ensure that central government policies are followed even when these are not the policies of the local ruling party. It is the chief executive who is expected to ensure that all the elected members not just those from the ruling party are kept informed but without breaking any confidences or losing the trust of any of the parties.Seems like there might be a need for chief execitives after all. Blair McPherson www.blairmcpherson.co.uk
