Councillors voted in favour of radical changes to the senior management structure at the Isle of Wight council last week.
Leader of the council, Cllr Jonathan Bacon, explained that following concerns over the succession plans for the Managing Director role (explained below), a six-month review had been added to the proposal to allow for alterations.
He said the council have to bear in mind the financial position they are in and that “to some extent” the changes to the staff structure are driven by this.
Reduction in MD’s working hours
The changes would see Dave Burbage, the Managing Director’s working hours (and pay) reduced to 80% from 1 July. Then reducing to 60% from 1 October, 40% from 1 January 2016 and with a new appointment being made to the Managing Director post with effect from 1 April 2016.
The proposal would see current deputy, John Metcalfe, assume additional duties from 1 April 2016 at a cost of £8,000pa on top of his current salary.
Market should be tested
The former Executive member for Human Resources, Cllr Gordon Kendall told members of the full council that although he accepted the general recommendations of the Employment Committee, he felt the council should be exploring a competitive recruitment process for the role of the MD, with a target start date of 1st October 2015.
He said,
“Now more than ever, this council needs to do things differently and unfortunately due to the austerity programme we do not have a lot of time to implement change and it takes up to six months to recruit a senior council officer. We cannot afford to wait a year before appointing a new Managing Director. Testing the market was too easily dismissed in the report.”
He added they should allocate funds for external advice on the process and it could be subject to a cost recovery plan making it an invest-to-save exercise.
Previous opposition
At the Employment Committee in February, when the proposal was first discussed, Cllr Kendall, expressed his stern opposition.
Following the meeting he also quit the Executive.
Motion passes
A proposal by Cllr Blezzard to refer the motion back to the Employment Committee did not gain enough votes.
Twenty seven members voting in favour of the main motion with two against (Cllrs Blezzard and Hollis) and eight abstaining (Cllrs Barry, Eccles, Hollands, Kendall, Perks, Pitcher, Price and Whitehouse).
Appointments made
The proposals also saw Strategic Manager for Legal Services, Helen Miles, appointed as the council’s Monitoring Officer from 7th April. Transformation Manager Chris Mathews was appointed as the Returning Officer and Electoral Registration Officer from 1st April as well as Clive Joynes, the Elections and Land Charges Manager being appointed Deputy Electoral Registration Officer from 1st April.
Full details can be found in the paper embedded below
Paper C: SENIOR MANAGEMENT STRUCTURE AND APPOINTMENT TO STATUTORY POSTS
Image: dominiccampbell under CC BY 2.0
