Cheshire East Council has appointed a temporary officer to its senior management team at a cost of over £1000 a day.
Jan Willis has been appointed as Interim Section 151 Officer, responsible for Finance, Procurement and Audit on an initial daily rate of £1,025. The Council then intends to seek a fixed term contract at a monthly salary cost of £10,626.
The role was previously held by Peter Bates, Chief Operating Officer, but the decision has been taken to make an external interim appointment to enable the Chief Operating Officer to focus on other responsibilities.
An Interim Statutory Monitoring Officer has also been appointed to cover the current absence of Bill Norman, Director of Legal Services and Monitoring Officer.
Daniel Dickinson, Deputy Monitoring Officer, has been appointed Interim Monitoring Officer and Director of Legal Services at an additional monthly cost of £2,621 (which represents the difference between his current monthly salary and the Monitoring Officer's monthly salary).
The decision to make these two appointments was taken by Kath O'Dwyer, the Acting Chief Executive, under 'urgency procedures'.
A report prepared for a meeting of the Staffing Committee on Thursday, 27th April, stated "A requirement to introduce immediate interim arrangements for the role of Statutory Monitoring Officer and Section 151 Officer has recently arisen. Given the importance of these statutory roles and the risk of delaying effective interim arrangements until Staffing Committee and Council, or until a quorate special meetings of those bodies can be convened, the delay was considered to be unacceptable. For this reason, urgency procedures were applied."
Kath O'Dwyer has been made Acting Chief Executive following Cheshire East Council's decision to suspend Chief Executive Mike Suarez while an independent investigation is undertaken after concerns were raised over the conduct of one or more senior officers at Cheshire East Council.
The Council will not disclose any details regarding the nature of the concerns raised about officer conduct or whether the committee is investigating the conduct of any other officers.
Comments
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How can CE Council countenance this cost in the current climate of service cuts?
Thanks for asking a very pertinent question.
Unfortunately I do not have the answers, as I do not sit on Staffing Committee. Political representation to the committee is as follows: Conservative 5, Labour 2, Independent (Middlewich First) 1. You can find the individual members of the Committee by following this link: http://bit.ly/2pAbUF7
Having said this, the decision has, I am sure, been taken to provide emergency cover whilst there is an ongoing investigation into the conduct of senior officers at CEC. Beyond that, I will not even attempt to justify the amounts being paid, which to ordinary people such as you or me, seem extortionate to say the least.
As you rightly ask, in the current climate of service cuts, how can this cost be countenanced? It puts me in a very difficult position when I have to try and explain to residents why there is so little money available for better road maintenance, increased parking provision, improved local amenities etc.
Kind regards,
Craig
I notice that Gary Barton (Wilmslow West) is Vice Chair of the Staffing Committee so I've asked the same question of him via the Wilmslow site.
I own and run a successful business so I could do this .I'll bid £9000 a month .
Reading Craig's comments, he seems as shocked as the rest of us !