New man at the helm of Unity

All change for council partner
OLDHAM Council’s partnership with a troubled private firm has a new managing director.

John Howard has stepped down from the role in the Unity Partnership — the council’s joint venture with Mouchel PLC — and has been replaced with Andrew Kendall.

The Chronicle reported last week how Labour were calling for the transfer of more council services to Unity to be delayed because of problems affecting the business partner.

Mouchel’s share price fell 15 per cent following reports that the company had struggled to get bank backing for a financial repackaging. This came after it announced losses of over £14.7 million in October and reduced staff by 2,000 across the country.

But Mouchel insisted the move to refinance the company with its banks and a due diligence exercise with Deloitte was standard practice — while the council said it was confident of the long-term future of the partnership.

Unity already provides the Access Oldham contact centre, some finance, highways, property and IT services and is due to take over the council’s human resources, credit control and some accounts functions, highway management and more customer services in February.

Mr Howard is to take up an opportunity as a director at KMPG in London in the New Year.

Council chief executive Charlie Parker said: “We have been informed of John Howard’s decision to move on to a new career opportunity and will be sorry to see him go.

“John has been instrumental in driving significant service improvements during his time here and his leadership has been exemplary. On behalf of the authority I would like to place on record our very best wishes to him in his new role.

“Oldham Council and Unity must look to the future and we are pleased that Mouchel have moved quickly to ensure that strong new management arrangements are in place to ensure continuity and purpose for all our services.

“Andrew Kendall will succeed John Howard as the managing director of Unity. He will be focussing on working with Oldham Council to shape the partnership in response to the ever-changing environment which local government is currently facing.

“I am also delighted to note that Roger Barrett, operations director at Unity, will be taking on an increased level of responsibility for the day-to-day management of the Partnership.”