Council Leader issues "rebuttal" to article on staff departures

Cllr Rachel Bailey (1)

Last month I published an article about the Director of Public Health at Cheshire East Council taking voluntary redundancy with a package of nearly £300,000, which includes pension costs to be met from within the Public Health Grant.

As part of a reorganisation, the current post of Director of Public Health, which reports to the Chief Executive, is being replaced with a Director of Public Health which reports to the Director of Adult Social Care and Health which resulted in a drop in salary for the position from £183,328 pa to £86,636 pa.

Dr Heather Grimbaldeston indicated that the new DPH post is not a suitable alternative to the present post, no other suitable alternative roles were available in the Council and as a result she requested to be allowed to leave the Council on voluntary redundancy terms.

Whilst looking for a photo of Dr Heather Grimbaldeston on wilmslow.co.uk I came across an article from April 2013 when Cheshire East Council announced the first wave of appointments to new senior management posts, which replaced the previous structure at the top of the organisation. Amongst the new senior team of 15 managers was Dr Heather Grimbaldeston, appointed as Director of Public Health.

This made me wonder how many of the 15 senior managers were still employed by Cheshire East Council, whether any others had taken voluntary redundancy and the size of their severance packages. I thought this would be in the public interest so I submitted a Freedom of Information request.

On Thursday, 15th September, I published the result of the FOI request and in my normal style I reported the information I had been provided with by Cheshire East Council without comment or opinion. Just before 9pm that evening I received a call from an irate member of the communications team at the Council about this piece. At their request I changed the headline from "Senior management team disbanded at hefty cost", which he said was "very unfair and totally misleading", and offered to publish a statement from CEC as they were keen to "balance the story".

Below is a "rebuttal" from the Leader of Cheshire East Council Rachel Bailey sent for publication on wilmslow.co.uk:

I refer to your on-line article which appeared on Thursday, September 15, 2016. I am disappointed yet again at the negative portrayal of Cheshire East Council for no good cause. You refer to a whole host of staff who have very appropriately moved on in their careers after working for the council over a three year period.

Local government is a fast-moving and dynamic and exciting career and changes over a three year period are not uncommon in large and complex organisations in the public, voluntary and commercial sectors.

Cheshire East Council attracts a high calibre of employees and we are rightly proud of their dedication and commitment and achievements. The Tour of Britain, recently hosted by Cheshire East Council, is a fantastic example of officers getting behind a wonderful initiative to bring a sense of prestige and prosperity to the borough for the benefit of business and residents.

Their hard work and dedication leaves a legacy that will benefit the borough for years to come. But staff who drive and innovate and are ambitious, do sometimes move on and up in their careers. That paired with a redesign of services to deliver better value means that, yes, some managers have taken redundancy options open to them.

In the case of Dr Heather Grimbaldeston, featured in your article as a case study and who received £296k, this figure was largely made up of pension contributions over her long and successful career in the NHS. This was not paid for by Cheshire East Council taxpayers. The actual cost of the voluntary redundancy is met from the money CEC gets directly from NHS England and relate to pension cost entitlements under NHS pension scheme rules.

Dr Grimbaldeston worked for the authority for three years but her service to the people of Cheshire East as DPH covered far longer. She was formerly Director of Public Health with the former Central and Eastern Cheshire Primary Care Trust, prior to joining Cheshire East Council when the public health service was transferred into local councils.

The decision to consider the voluntary redundancy request came as the Council sought to further integrate adult social care and health services under the new strategic director of adult social care and health, within the new 'People' directorate. The new structure will support greater integration, clearer accountability and clearer reporting lines. The revised role will lead public health services within the new structure and will result in a saving of £96,000 per year, together with further savings to be created from a review of the team structure.

Staff have the right to opt for voluntary redundancy, leave their employment for new challenges and change their mind with regard to life priorities. We cannot – nor should we try – to stop this. For anyone who has ever worked for the authority they will know that the Council is a great place to work and Cheshire East is a great place to live and bring up a family. Going into the future, we pride ourselves on this very point. I will defend our valued officers' good name, at all times.

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Comments

Here's what readers have had to say so far. Why not add your thoughts below.

David Hadfield
Monday 19th September 2016 at 7:26 am
Well done Lisa Reeves,
You're taking these overpaid employees to task (paid by us, the local ratepayers, of course)
and questioning their motives and excessive payouts.

Rachel Bailey, the Leader of Cheshire East, tells us what a fantastic job her council have done with the recent Tour of Britain cycle race ..... Yes, they did, but I'd be more impressed if they concentrated on doing the jobs they're paid to do, and one of their tasks is to keep these roads in good repair ............. Yet many roads in Cheshire East are STILL in a disgraceful state.
I call it GETTING YOUR PRIORITIES RIGHT !
Alan R Davies
Monday 19th September 2016 at 7:27 am
My advice to Councillor Bailey: when you are in a hole, stop digging.
Vince Fogharty
Monday 19th September 2016 at 1:34 pm
Well done Lisa, clearly ruffled a few feathers. The issue is not with those who are / were employed, after all they are just getting what they are rightly entitled to under the terms of the contact they agreed when joining. The issue is how can a council justify ANY member of staff being paid more than the person running our country ie the PM. The salary cost of that "top team" would dwarf that of the PM's current cabinet, how is that acceptable?
Elizabeth Mooney
Monday 19th September 2016 at 2:01 pm
To paraphrase the late Mandy Rice Davies "well she would, wouldn't she". I quite agree with the sentiments expressed by the above commentators and also thank Lisa for bringing this item of news to our attention. Rachel Bailey is digging a hole and she and her officers are not above public scrutiny. Her attitude explains in part how some of these ridiculous payoffs (some for a relatively short tenure) are sanctioned. In other news today we are reminded that the disgraced former head of Southern Health who was moved slyly sideways on the same generous pay and perks, however her boss has had to step down today because of the public outrage as he sanctioned the move ( healso chose to publicly defend Percy and her salary with flowery prose), there is a lesson there Rachel, why not start defending the beleaguered residents of Cheshire East who pay the wages of the top few.
Graham Hall
Tuesday 20th September 2016 at 1:48 pm
I remember Erica Wenzel justifying her inflated salary to a meeting by saying that it was comparable with any Chief exec of a similar sized business. Ms Wenzel of course had to take a hefty pay off because stress shortened her career. Cheshire East let me tell you that you are not running a Business.?Any business owner will tell you that a business has to earn profit before it spends money . All you at Cheshire East have to do is collect our money and spend it wisely .How hard and stressful can that be it's only shopping ! ?. Cheshire East exhibits all the signs of being a self serving self perpetuating bureaucratic gravy train . The split in the county between East and West was a job creation exercise for these pricey pen pushers and they continue to line each others pockets with our money.Unfortunately there is no opposition in Cheshire either East or West so no-one is held to account .So this is an excellent piece of journalism - thank TB for the Foi act .As for Cheshire East crying foul here is a simple bit of advice - if you think that it won't look good when it comes out in the public domain you probably shouldn't be doing it in the first place .!!!
Richard Slater
Tuesday 20th September 2016 at 2:08 pm
Well done Lisa, keep digging, and keeping these people on their toes. The council should be run like a business, but clearly spending vast sums on promoting the cycle event, which I suspect did'nt really bring much visitor revenue into Cheshire East, is surely not the top priority. Something not quite right about this whole story, otherwise they wouldnt of been in touch so quickly to cover up!
Alec Finney
Tuesday 20th September 2016 at 2:15 pm
Yes - well done Lisa.

In your original article the most insightful description of the internal workings of the council was presented by the job-titles of those involved.

It very much reminded me of the BBC under Birt. Unfathomable descriptions of why that person was employed - an opaque view of what the critical success factors were.

It is a scandal that the cycle tour should be held up as a significant achievement for the council. We need to see (preferably in English, not Council Speak) the priorities the council set themselves.

The council's version of a manifesto? Does one exist?

Keep pushing Lisa.

Alec Finney
Vic Barlow
Tuesday 20th September 2016 at 2:52 pm
I think you are all overlooking the fantastic job CEC did with the Paralympics, the World Cup,
Lewis Hamilton's stunning F1 championship season, the US Open Golf, Wimbledon and many many more global successes they can site as proof of their 'dynamism.'
Charlotte Peters Rock
Tuesday 20th September 2016 at 7:00 pm
It seems that since the Council leader thinks that some of these 'high flyers on the wing', could only be expected to stay for three years, my though that Lorraine Butcher was only employed to butcher our social care services, as she so successfully did in the Knutsford area.. and was then in line for her £100,000 prize? If I am wrong about that, I'm sure that the Council leader will come back and say so, and that you will give her the space to do so? In the meantime, we are still deprived of dementia care and assessment, day and overnight respite care in the Knutsford area, where there are so many elderly people in need of such care. Perhaps I can point out that 'social care' has been paid in for, as a 'right'. It is not the same as - the profit-taking - commercial care.. but should exist round the clock, reliably, on every day of the year, to support not only the 'cared for', but also their family carers.

And since the Council has now so carefully linked social care and health services, through Caring Together, with Eastern Cheshire CCG, perhaps I can ask for a response on the current lack of intermediate care beds and minor injuries care in this area?

I think, as members of the paying public, we need to ask exactly what those who left with large payoffs did to benefit us? Did we actually get the good value from the wages, pension and redundancy payments for the work they did? Perhaps, following your brilliant piece of research, you might like to ask?

As for the Cycle race, where are out footpaths and cycle lanes.. our actual benefit from such council outlay on our behalf? The roads around Knutsford are not to be safely walked for any distance.. and I would hate to have to cycle them.
Graham Nicholson
Tuesday 20th September 2016 at 7:21 pm
Rachel - my previous draft was accidentally sent before completion - please ignore - I will send another shortly
Christopher Horne
Tuesday 20th September 2016 at 7:30 pm
It is an absolute disgrace that Lisa fails to give full credit to the Council for Toft's Rob Jones's maiden hundred for Lancashire last week.

Or for the quality of wine obtainable in Alderley High Street
Or for the quality of beer available in Wilmslow
Or for the cars available at Royles

The bureaucrats deserve every penny of their hundreds of thousands of pounds - after all most of the poor things are unemployable in the private sector
Graham Nicholson
Tuesday 20th September 2016 at 8:01 pm
It's perfectly proper to shine a spotlight on waste of public money or excessive pay-offs. People in local government know their every move is open to public scrutiny in a way that few businesses experience. But there's some lazy public sector bashing in these comments which is counter-productive. Having worked both in senior positions in local authorities and run a private sector business I know both sectors have their share of challenges, stresses and strains. It is fatuous and insulting to write 'All you at Cheshire East have to do is collect our money and spend it wisely .How hard and stressful can that be it's only shopping ! ? ' Protecting vulnerable children, looking after the interests of the elderly, striking the right balance between development and environment, managing the public realm, road safety, pursuing rogue traders - this is not just shopping

My point is that we need the sectors to understand each other's objectives and work together constructively if we are to create and sustain a successful, caring and prosperous community.
Alec Finney
Tuesday 20th September 2016 at 9:27 pm
You are right Graham - local government does have some difficult decisions to make. Limited budgets lead to establishing priorities that will never satisfy everyone. If there was a more transparent way of appreciating these difficulties then maybe the public/private sectors could move to a more understanding partnership.

But when Leader of Cheshire East Council, Rachel Bailey, tells us that the capture of a cycling competition should be recognized as a major council success - she must be made aware that this 'achievement' is a million miles away from what most of the people she serves see as a priority.

Maybe the word 'serves' is not one the council recognizes.

Kafka would be proud.

Alec Finney
Adrian Scott
Wednesday 21st September 2016 at 9:50 am
Lisa, you're a star !
When will these "Fat Cat" so called public servants realise the contempt with which they are held by their residents. They take excessive salaries, excessive pensions and do diddly squat compared to government ministers, let alone the PM.
I long for the day when central government put a cap on local government salaries which at best should be less than a minister of state, and preferably no more than an MP. Pensions should also be capped accordingly.
Further regulation should be imposed; in that, anyone who takes voluntary redundancy may not be re-employed by any Council within six months unless they forfeit their redundancy payment less monthly salary for those months out of work.
Think how much money that would save for council tax payers nationally !!