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Former Wakefield MDC chief executive, John Foster, has been hired to head up Islington LBC, following the departure of Helen Bailey to the Treasury. Mr Foster will take up his post at the beginning of June, when Ms Bailey departs. He has been hired on a salary of £200,000 – matching his former package at Wakefield MDC, where he was chief executive for five years until 2007. Prior to the Wakefield post, he was managing director of Middlesbrough Council, with one of the country's first directly-elected mayors, Ray Mallon – nicknamed ‘Robocop'. Mr Foster's local government career began when he started as a community worker at Northumberland CC in 1970. He told The MJ he was ‘very much looking forward' to being at Islington, and working in London. He paid tribute to the borough's ‘fantastic progress in recent years'. ‘I'm very much looking forward to building on this success and becoming part of the council's journey of improvement as we strive to deliver first-class services for local residents.' Islington leader, James Kempton, said he was ‘delighted' with the appointment. ‘Mr Foster is passionate about delivering high-quality services to residents, which we place at the heart of everything we do. With such an impressive record and his enthusiasm for listening to local people he is exactly what we need. Islington deserves the best, and in John Foster we have one of the best chief executives in the UK.' Helen Bailey landed a top role with the Government when she was appointed new director of public services at the Treasury last month (The MJ, 6 March 2008). She will oversee £250bn of public service cash. Ms Bailey was chief executive of Islington LBC for six years, before she decided to step down at the start of this year. Her time at the council was dogged by a controversial Standards Board investigation over her appointment, which lasted three years and cost £1m. The board was forced to apologise to Ms Bailey and the councillors accused of allegedly inappropriately appointing her. In 2006, Mr Foster was in the top five-rated council chief executives in the UK in a survey of his peers by The MJ and Ipsos MORI. One local government insider said: ‘It will be interesting to see how Mr Foster – the archetypal, tough Northern council chief executive – gets on in trendy Islington, the cradle of new Labour luvvies.'

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WHITEHALL

Islington heads north to find its next chief

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