In April 2013 Cheshire East Council announced the first wave of appointments to a new senior management team, which replaced the previous structure at the top of the organisation.
At the time fifteen members of staff were appointed to new senior management posts, which was the first stage of a much wider review of all management roles and responsibilities at the Council.
The Council stated that the "new approach is intended to ensure more effective and better value-for-money services for local residents and businesses in Cheshire East. Overall management costs will be cut by £5m a year as part of this, which the Council says will do away with the "outdated and unhelpful professional 'silos' within the organisation, which created bureaucracy, waste and delay in making the positive differences to quality of life that local people want to see".
As the result of a Freedom of Information Request we can reveal that only four of these fifteen senior managers remain employed by Cheshire East Council.
Three of them have left the Council having accepted voluntary redundancy costing tax payers nearly half a million pounds.
First to accept voluntary redundancy was Paul Bradshaw. He was a severence package of £78,388 having held the position of Head of Organisational Development for just 15 months.
Lorraine Butcher departed in July 2015 with a package worth just under £100,000 for her 27 months as Executive Director of Strategic Commissioning. Thirdly, Heather Grimbaldeston took voluntary redundancy from her role as Director of Public Health this month with a severance package of £296,738.
Four other senior managers have resigned since April 2013: Vivienne Quayle, Head of Commercial Strategy, Business Innovation and Performance left in October 2013 after six months in the role; Tony Crane, Director of Children's Services left in May 2015; Caroline Simpson, Director of Economic Growth and Prosperity left in April 2016 and Brenda Smith, Director of Adult Social Care and Independent Living left Cheshire East Council in June 2016.
In 2014 Kevin Melling, Head of Environment Protection and Enhancement, and Peter Hartwell, Head of Public Protection and Enforcement, were transferred to ANSA - a new company set up in April 2014 to deliver waste and recycling services for Cheshire East Council.
Whilst Rachel Musson, Interim Chief Operating Officer, and Mike Rowan, Interim Monitoring Officer and Head of Legal Services, left in 2013 when their temporary employment came to an end.
That leaves four of the senior management team created in April 2013 as current employees: Nigel Moorhouse, Head of Early Intervention and Prevention; Brian Reed, Head of Democratic Services and Governance; Mike Suarez, Chief Executive and Steph Cordon, Head of Communities.
Comments
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Eggs and tomatoes are cheap !
Then again, how many of us, if offered a £250,000 'kiss-off', would take the dosh and run ? Sad really innit ?
Rather than simply indulge in excoriating those who pocket the dosh 'today', might we ask about those who set up/signed off the contracts?
Will they in turn benefit from similar contracts?
Plus whoever sets those up; will they benefit in turn?
A cycle?
Big fleas have little fleas,
upon their backs to bite 'em,
and little fleas have lesser fleas,
and so ad infinitum.