Can Mods lure a new Brighton and Hove chief executive? (From The Argus)

Can Mods lure a new Brighton and Hove chief executive?

2:30pm Wednesday 22nd August 2012 in News By Neil Vowles

LURE OF THE MOD: The council's advert logo

First it was Status Quo - now Brighton and Hove City Council is hoping the lure of the Mod will help them find a new chief executive.

Adverts to find the city council’s new chief executive have now been posted on the council’s website.

The council is using the city’s reputation as a Mod capital in its Mod to modems recruitment process.

The advert continues – “trendsetters in the 60s, Silicon Beach in the 21stcentury – Brighton is a city that embraces innovation.”

The style mirrors the quirky £14,000 campaign of namedropping Status Quo to attract four £125,000-a-year super-directors in 2010.

The council has employed executive recruitment company Gatenby Sanderson to find their new chief.

Potential applicants have until midday on Wednesday September 12 to throw their hat into the ring for the role.

Successful candidates will have to undergo a preliminary interview, a psychometric assessment and an assessment day culminating with a final panel interview by a cross-party panel of councillors on October 3.

The exact salary is not known but it is believed to be lower than the £161,500 paid to Mr Barradell.

Director Catherine Vaughan will step into Mr Barradell’s shoes as interim chief executive from September 10.

In the advert posted on their website Brighton and Hove City Council leader promotes the Green party administration’s One Planet Living and commitment to becoming a digital council as selling points for the council.

He writes: “We know that success will require us to think carefully about different service delivery models and about levels of investment in key projects and infrastructure.

“A sustainable and successful future can co-exist with a period of financial restraint.

“I do not have a fixed view on where you might be working currently, but I am certain that you will have the strength of character and leadership to shape a talented group of officers to propel us forward on the next leg of our journey.”

Mark Tuner, of the GMB union, said the council needed a candidate that knew Brighton and didn’t view the role as a career “stepping stone”.

He added: “To get a recruitment agency to head hunt for this role is a waste of public money.

“There are people in the council’s HR department who can put an advert together, if people are interested they will come.

“It comes to something that the council has to use this sort of quirky gimmick to get a chief executive but at least they’re closer to Brighton’s history with Mods rather than Status Quo.”