Call for Sefton Council Slim-Down

A senior Southport councillor is calling for a slim down of Sefton Council.

The Council is presently advertising for a new Executive Director to help Chief Executive Margaret Carney keep the show on the road.

https://jobs.theguardian.com/job/6562840/executive-director/

https://sefton-gov.becruiter.net/jobagent/_sefton_gov_uk/profitcenter/job_details.aspx?jobid=614921

http://modgov.sefton.gov.uk/documents/s59619/Appendix%204.pdf

But Councillor Southport Councillor Tony Dawson feels that the Council needs to look hard at its priorities for spending in the tough times we face today.

“I was on the panel who appointed the present two Executive Directors Charlotte Bailey and Sarah Kemp,” said Councillor Dawson, “and we agreed, across Party, that the candidates we chose brought talent to the Council. But I said at that time, that the Council might not be able to afford to keep both these positions going for too long.”

“I was worrying then about possibly having to make one of these senior staff redundant. But, now that one is leaving, I think the Council may need to seize the opportunity to pull in its belt.”

“I am not saying that these posts are not useful but the question has to be asked:: ‘Is appointing a replacement in this job worth the £150,000 of cuts that will have to be made to pay for it?’. The people of Southport may have a different view on this to Sefton Council’s bosses.”

“The two top new posts were brought in when the Council was making a major management upheaval, appointing a whole raft of previous third-in-line officers to new positions where they had far wider responsibilities and only the Chief Exec above them. It was argued then that these extra two posts were needed to help Margaret Carney manage the Council through the transition. There can be no doubt that both staff members have been very useful, but I think the Council may have to bite the bullet and face the reality of hard choices.”

Over the past six years, the Council’s Labour group have repeatedly defended top managers’ jobs while cutting frontline jobs and services. Eventually, after years of resisiting, they eventually make the decisions years after they were first asked to do, meaning that million upon million of lost savings have gone down the plughole.

Former Chief Executive Graham Haywood lost his job in 2002 after proposing a very modest set of senior staff cuts which Labour and Tory bosses would not wear and decided he would have to go. It was Councillor Dawson who first obtained the independent legal advice that the Council’s sacking of the previous chief executive

was illegal which led to the infamous three months of Sefton’s Labour-Tory coalition, the only such arrangement ever seen in England.

https://sefton-gov.becruiter.net/jobagent/_sefton_gov_uk/profitcenter/job_details.aspx?jobid=614921