New-style political systems have robbed officers of a training ground for their political skills, the head of chief executive's body SOLACE has claimed. Speaking at a North East SOLACE branch meeting last week, director general, David Clark, said past generations of chief executives had ‘learned their political skills in committee meetings. The cabinet system takes away the political learning.' Political skills were, he said, what separated local authority chief executives from their counterparts in the private sector. There had to be a ‘mutual respect' between members and officers, and where that fails it ‘all falls apart', he claimed.
