In the firing line
Reporter: Janice Barker
Date published: 16 October 2008
New council chief to wield the axe — at the top
THREE days into his new role and Oldham’s chief executive Charlie Parker is calling for a major cull of top jobs at the council.
Five executive director posts — the most senior positions with salaries of over £115,000 — will be cut to three. But the trio will be paid up to £140,000.
Mr Parker is reacting to feedback on Oldham’s major Government inspection — the Corporate Performance Assessment.
It found weak and sometimes non-existent corporate management of key issues, and “chronic departmentalism and silo working.”
His report went public last night and will be discussed at a special meeting on Tuesday. In it he says: “The council is currently over-staffed in comparison to similar sized authorities.
“There are too many tiers of management and the number of senior managers is also disproportionate to the size of the organisation.”
Mr Parker says the council also has a significant gap in meeting a legal budget for next year, and adds: “There is a recognition that there will have to be reductions in staff numbers from the top of the organisation through to more junior posts.”
Cutting top jobs from five to three should save £200,000 a year. A new assistant chief executive post will look after corporate policy, external partnerships and communications, but the post of deputy chief executive will be deleted.
Consultation has begun with the trade unions, already braced for formal notice of up to 850 redundancies.
The five executive directors will have to reapply for the new posts and compete with outside applicants.
Mr Parker has also suspended plans to transfer 400 more council jobs to the Unity Partnership, which is paid to carry out back office functions for the authority.
Today Mr Parker, who has been spending two days a week in Oldham for the past three months, said: “The three jobs are different, we are changing job descriptions, these are bigger roles and carry more responsibility, a different way of delivery.
“They are aimed at breaking down barriers between existing departments, making sure that we are working more efficiently.”
The three new directors will be responsible for triple themes: people, communities and society; economy, places and skills; and performance, capacity and services.
They replace strategy and resources, currently held by Liz Terry; environmental services John Hurst; regeneration, Tom Flanagan; adult and community services, Veronica Jackson and children, young people and families Janet Donaldson.
Jim McDermott, convenor of the council’s GMB union members, said: “We welcome changes at the top because everyone — the public, unions, government inspectors — recognises we are top heavy.
“But we are disappointed that these people will leave with a huge redundancy package, different to the people on the shop floor.”
Opposition Labour leader Councillor Jim McMahon said: “Reducing the number of directors is a good start, but in reality the top team is only being reduced by one member, because a new post of assistant chief cxecutive is being created and I would have liked it to have gone further.”
