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Replacing top Brighton council officers could cost £1m

10:36am Tuesday 20th July 2010 in


The appointment of four new council superdirectors, earning a combined £500,000, will leave taxpayers footing a compensation bill of up to £1 million.

Cash-strapped Brighton and Hove City Council made the announcement on the same day it mapped out how it was going to save £3.6 million from this year's budget.

It is the first step in a restructure of the local authority as planned by its chief executive, John Barradell.

The new appointments - all male and external candidates - will each earn £125,000 a year.

A panel of Conservative and Labour councillors had the final say in the appointments.

The four superdirectors , known as strategic directors, will replace the current system of six superheads.

The successful candidates, who have all come from other local government bodies, will force the council to make at least three costly payoffs.

Union representatives last night said this could add up to £1 million.

An additional top post of finance director will be filled for the foreseeable future by Catherine Vaughan, current director of finance and resources.

It comes at a time when the local authority pledged to make up to £75 million of savings over the next three years.

The new staff are Geoff Raw (strategic director of place) , Charlie Stewart (strategic director of resources) , David Murray (strategic director of communities) and Terry Parkin (strategic director of people).

The changes mean that Di Smith, director of the city's Children and Young People's Trust, strategy and governance director Alex Bailey and Scott Marshall, director of housing, culture and enterprise, will lose their jobs.

The council's environment director, Jenny Rowlands, had already announced she would take up the post of chief executive at Lewes District Council in September.

Joy Hollister, director of adult social care, had also announced, in January, that she was leaving.

Comments(13)

RAS Putin says...
10:49am Tue 20 Jul 10

The cuts will be for the peasants delivering front-line services, not for the troughing pigs at the top of the food chain.

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PeteBrighton says...
11:03am Tue 20 Jul 10

The only super thing about this lot appears to be their salary. They'll be ion post long enough for it to get on their CV then they'll be off, compensated to the hilt to some other trough.

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Rearrangethedeckchairs says...
11:20am Tue 20 Jul 10

So a million to sack the current directors to add to the £500,000 paid to sack the last Chief Executive Alan McCarthy- thats lots of extra unnecessary cuts at a time of financial meltdown.....

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bug eye says...
11:34am Tue 20 Jul 10

makes sense to me, get rid of the dead wood that would cost us millions and replace them with people that can actually do a job get things done and make a difference, money well spent I would say. what is the point of hanging on to dead wood to avoid paying them off, that is typical left wing thinking. as for the fact they are external, so what, if they are the best people thats great we obviously havnt got the calibre of staff locally. as for all men, again so what, its the job that has to be done not political correctness, best person for the job, ban all women shorlists they are not good for the public purse strings or effective and the country is not a charity.

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relaxed says...
12:04pm Tue 20 Jul 10

It's the old management practice - if you can't make the people change, change the people.

What really gets my goat is the flagrant way the council has told tax payers that a leaner top management saves £100,000 in pay. How come? There are 4 superbigcheeses on £125,000 plus a 5th bigcheese Finance Director already on at least £100,000 (I make that £600,000 in total) replacing 6 Directors each on £100,000. No Saving at all. What do you say to that councillors?

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Tally Ho! says...
12:42pm Tue 20 Jul 10

relaxed wrote:
It's the old management practice - if you can't make the people change, change the people.

What really gets my goat is the flagrant way the council has told tax payers that a leaner top management saves £100,000 in pay. How come? There are 4 superbigcheeses on £125,000 plus a 5th bigcheese Finance Director already on at least £100,000 (I make that £600,000 in total) replacing 6 Directors each on £100,000. No Saving at all. What do you say to that councillors?
Trebles all round! Nice work if you can get it!

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rayellerton says...
1:39pm Tue 20 Jul 10

RAS Putin wrote:
The cuts will be for the peasants delivering front-line services, not for the troughing pigs at the top of the food chain.
My argument with every news item regarding Brighton council expenditure or cuts....again, turkeys dont vote for xmas.

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colavey says...
3:00pm Tue 20 Jul 10

David Murray (strategic director of communities) and Terry Parkin (strategic director of people)? I have found over the years communities are much better at directing and organising their own affairs, until that is the unelected officials start poking their oar in the it usually goes t**s up, so far as a director of people is concerned, what is his job one must wonder? Does he go around the city trying to bully and whip the citizens into the councils way of thinking, what happens when he runs across a stubborn b**t**d like myself refuses to join his little charade. I know it’s a Tory come Green council but I certainly didn`t vote to have unelected officials dictating to my elected councillor what they must or mustn`t do.

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Andy R says...
4:08pm Tue 20 Jul 10

bug eye wrote:
makes sense to me, get rid of the dead wood that would cost us millions and replace them with people that can actually do a job get things done and make a difference, money well spent I would say. what is the point of hanging on to dead wood to avoid paying them off, that is typical left wing thinking. as for the fact they are external, so what, if they are the best people thats great we obviously havnt got the calibre of staff locally. as for all men, again so what, its the job that has to be done not political correctness, best person for the job, ban all women shorlists they are not good for the public purse strings or effective and the country is not a charity.
There have never been "all-women" shortlists in public sector recruitment - another tabloid myth - though all-men shortlists seem fairly common.....

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Christophe Hawtree says...
9:21pm Tue 20 Jul 10

With all this Mary Mears finds herself in an eco system of her very own devising: she is in limitless hot water at no cost to herself (just to the rest of us).

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TheInsider says...
11:23pm Tue 20 Jul 10

I would like the Argus to give us some potted biographies of these people.
Are they former colleagues of the chief executive or have they come from private industry?
What contracts are they on?
Has the council has the foresight to set performance related contracts and time limited contracts or are we going to pay out another lot of severance fees once the council decides they don't like this lot either.
I think it's time there was a proper investigation into this council's HR practices.
But please Jo Wadsworth, can the reporters give us some potted histories into these new appointments.

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Andy R says...
11:14am Wed 21 Jul 10

There is some information here

http://www.brighton-
hove.gov.uk/index.cf
m?request=c1229774

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relaxed says...
1:52pm Thu 22 Jul 10

To the Insider-

HR practices at the top level are seldom anything to do with the HR professionals within the organisation - they are usually cobbled together by top execs. and boards. You can expect the superbigcheeses to be on so-called individual contracts that have been negotiated - unlike the standard contracts all the other Council staff are limited to (by the unions). The idea that an external company decides the remuneration for any staff in an organisation (I read that this has been the case here) is ludicrous. An organisation must decide what it can afford and set its own remuneration!

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