Speech to Kent County Council on Proposal to Delete the Post of Managing Director

At the Full Kent County Council meeting on 15th December, the Conservative run County Council voted to remove the post of Managing Director. In the debate on the proposal, which was voted against by the liberal Democrat and Labour groups, this is what I said:

"Thank you Chairman, and Happy Christmas to you and all Councillors.

"In limited time, it's important to concentrate on looking forward and discussing the future management structure of this Council. But we also should talk about how we got here, and the extraordinary pre-emption of the decision today.

"Mr Carter told us earlier that it was an "open secret" he had long been considering if the post of Managing Director was needed, yet 18 months ago this Council appointed a Managing Director on a four year contract. If there was doubt then on the structure of the Council in that period, then not allowing for that in the contract was a terrible lapse.

"But that four year contract provided an opportunity to this Council to plan what our structure should be. We've just gone through a huge re-organisation. We've got two of the hardest budgets this Council will face over the next two years.

"A reasonable approach would have been to use the talents of a Managing Director through those challenges, to then decide if an MD was needed at the end of that term, and then simply not renew the contract - no payoffs.

"It's clear that a decision to get rid of the Managing Director was made and has been actioned before this Council has had any opportunity to have a say in it.

"Taxpayers and staff have a right to know why it is being reported that a payoff to Katherine Kerswell has been made. If she left voluntarily there would be no pay-off. If this Council decides today to delete that post, then she would have been entitled to redundancy as in her contract. And in either case, not a penny more.

"Turning to the proposed deletion of the Managing Director role, there's more evidence of the existence of the Higgs Boson than there is that a council of this size can work well without a managing director. There's probably more evidence of Santa.

"The Wiltshire model remains the Wiltshire theory. Their Chief Executive took voluntary redundancy on 11^th November 2011. There has been no time to assess yet whether the new structure works or if it doesn't.

"Mr Carter has also pointed at a number of Councils who are sharing a Chief Executive - but in those cases they still have one, albeit shared.

"The entire cross cutting leadership of this council will now be in the hands of a leader who has both the best interests of his party as well as this council to balance.

"I believe that a cross cutting Managing Director of this Council can and would save more taxpayers money than it would cost.

"The past Managing Director was paid around 0.01% of the total budget of this council. Having an MD has a potential 0.01% downside. And therefore a potential 99.99% upside where savings could be found by that Managing Director.

"This isn't a bold step for Kent. This is boldly going where no-one has gone before. It is a giant leap in the dark.

"Please think about it and reject the recommendations."