Newcastle Council chief executive post reserved for acting chief

May 7 2009 by Amy Hunt, The Journal

“I voted in favour of the ring-fenced interview because I didn’t want to give any impression of lack of confidence in the acting chief executive, who has been doing the job for six months.

“The interview will be done very rigorously. If he fails to achieve the standard we are looking for we will go to the fallback position of advertising.”

It is believed councillors at the meeting were given the choice of whether to open the post to external candidates or not. They were told advertising the post, which carries maximum earnings of around £175,000, would cost £30,000 more than ring-fencing it.

Members of the constitutional committee would form the interview panel which would make the appointment, which would then have to be approved by the full council.

Since taking up the nine-month temporary post last year Mr Rowland, who was previously deputy chief executive, has overseen a process of shedding 510 posts at the city council.

The “transformation” programme aims to save £20m by reorganising the management structure. As part of the process the post of deputy chief executive looks set to be scrapped, which would leave Mr Rowland without a job were he not permanently given the top job.

Last month Mr Rowland announced a deal for the council to buy the empty Northern Rock tower in Gosforth for a sum thought to be around £22m.

The building will be leased to support services firm eaga, with which the city council is setting up a firm to tender for services such as payroll and customer service. The partners say this will create up to 500 jobs and secure 2,000.

Former chief executive Ian Stratford quit his £170,000 post in November, having taken up the post in 2002, to take early retirement. The council came under fire for refusing to reveal details of Mr Stratford’s severance package, said to be worth around £400,000.

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