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Michael Frater, who heads the Government's Lifting the burdens task force, is new chief executive at Nottingham City Council. And he has big ambitions, as Heather Jameson finds out
Walking through the corridors of Nottingham City Council's guildhall, there is an overwhelming smell of fresh paint. It can, of course, mean only one thing – the CPA inspectors are on their way.
The chief executive's office is no different. Freshly painted and pristine but somewhat bare and a little lacking in personality.
Michael Frater, who took up the post in November, has not yet had the chance to make his mark. He has taken on the new role with a host of plans for the city – and is also in the process of a major review on behalf of the Government. Interior design is the last thing on his mind.
Summer was a busy time for Michael. At the end of June, he scooped The MJ award for best achieving council with his previous authority Telford and Wrekin. The following week, secretary of state Ruth Kelly used her LGA speech to announce the Government's new Lifting the burdens task force – with Michael at the helm.
The first report is due out shortly, but Michael remains tight-lipped about anything he may be recommending.  
It's not the first thing the task force has undertaken. It kicked-off with a ‘quick piece of work for the Treasury'.
‘It won't be published, but it will feed into the Comprehensive Spending Review,' he says.
‘There is a recognition in the Government that performance management, regulation and inspection has gone too far. The problem is, ministers think it is everyone else, and not their department,' he quips.
He is hopeful he can have an impact on government targets, and is keen to produce reports the task force believes are right, but will be realistic for the Government to implement.
‘There are some things which can be done quickly and easily, if Ms Kelly wants to demonstrate to other ministers and local government that she is serious about lifting burdens,' he says.
‘We are not just looking at performance indicators, but a huge number of things we have to send for approval. Some of these are areas that should be handled at a middle management level – they wouldn't even have to come to director level here, yet we have to send them into central government.'
He cites the example of education – one of the key obsessions of the Blair Government. He claims there is nothing central government needs to know about individual schools which can't be gleaned from key stage results and absence figures.
And it is not just the level of information that concerns him – duplication is also a problem, more so in ‘those departments which don't have a close relationship with local government'.
There is a lack of understanding and joined-up thinking, so departments rarely know what is being collected elsewhere,
‘The same data – or very similar information – is sometimes required four or five times from different government departments – but they all want slightly different information.'  He repeats his mantra for lifting the burdens: ‘Collect once, use many times.'
Michael is still unclear about how long the whole process will take, but claims he envisages more than one annual report – but no more than two. Ultimately, he wants to finish with arrangements in place ‘to stop this growing like topsy-turvy again'.
Michael left school and joined Kent CC as a trainee planner, but he is by no means a local government ‘lifer'. He decided he ‘fancied the student lifestyle', so went off to study. He obviously enjoyed it, as he came out 10 years later with a degree in planning, a Masters from INLOGOV, and an unfinished PhD.
He did a variety of different jobs during that time – from hospital porter to park-keeper, and claims he learned more about management at that time than in any other point in his career – simply by being so badly managed by other people.
At 31, he got his first ‘proper job' at Wrekin Council. He was there for seven years, followed by a stint back at Kent CC, before he found himself at Redbridge as chief executive. In 2000, when he moved to Telford and Wrekin, he says it was regarded as an unusual move, to go from a London borough with a population of 250,000, to the new town with just 100,000 people.
While he was at Telford, he was asked to take over at basket case Walsall MBC. He took on the job three days a week, while remaining at the helm at Telford. It is perhaps apparent why he left the London borough when he says that Walsall gave him a strong sense of ‘deja vu'. 
‘It was my intention to stay at Telford until I retired – I will be 60 in April 2008. But then Julie Towers [chief executive of recruitment firm Tribal Resourcing] came knocking on my door about Nottingham. Then I met the leader, John Collins. His passion for the city was infectious.'
Michael has a long list of priorities for the city – starting with changing the perceptions. A Panorama TV programme, which branded the city as a gun capital, has had a lasting effect. Then he wants to ‘raise our game' on partnership working.
He talks about making Nottingham a world-class city. ‘We are not just in competition with the other core cities – or even with European cities. We are in competition with other cities around the world.' And he is looking to expand the boundaries of the city to make it a larger unitary.
‘We want a city council that covers the Nottingham conurbation.' That will mean taking bits from the surrounding districts. The council is currently seeking clarification from the Government about whether this could happen under the Local Government Bill.
The council is also leading on environmental issues, and much of the city centre is being regenerated.
‘Internally, we need a big culture change programme,' he says. ‘We are good at measuring performance management, but not doing it.'
And, of course, there's the CPA inspection coming up.
With all that on the cards, it is hardly surprising that the office redec