September 18: New chief executive - or not?
I blogged yesterday on the departure of Peter
Gilroy as KCC chief executive and asked who might be his
successor.
It's a good job after all. What ambitious local government
careerist with an eye on rising up the public sector ladder
wouldn't be interested in taking charge of the country's largest
county council? And of course there's the prospect of a six-figure
salary, too.
But one or two people I've been chatting to at County Hall
proffered an interesting scenario.
Perhaps KCC might be considering not appointing a chief
executive and simply having a chief officers' team.
With the likelihood of a tricky budget not just this year but
the next few, coupled with general public resentment at so-called
"fat cat" pay for council bosses, might the ruling political
Conservative administration be pondering such a move?
It would certainly be a way of demonstrating its
empathy with those who have a somewhat jaundiced view of
escalating public sector pay for senior officials.
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Politicans - especially those who have an eye on becoming
an MP - have to tread a careful line when aligning themselves with
community causes.
There is currently a great deal of public concern over the
prospect of maternity services being moved from Maidstone Hospital
to Pembury.
Tory hopeful Helen Grant and Lib Dem parliamentary candidate
Peter Carroll are both campaigning against the move. And there's no
reason why they shouldn't.
But as I've
written in my Off The Record column for The Kent
Messenger this week, it seems there is something of a
PR arms race underway. I've decided to post it on the blog too as
I'd be interested if others feel the same way:
"IT is always good too see politicians –
or would-be politicians – rally to any community cause and no-one
could doubt that there is, among the public, great disquiet over
plans to remove maternity services from Maidstone
hospital.
But in launching entirely separate
political campaigns, Maidstone parliamentary hopefuls, Lib Dem
Peter Carroll and Conservative Helen Grant, risk giving the
impression that however sincere their concerns undoubtedly are,
both also have an eye on how their campaigns will play with the
electorate ahead of a general election.
There already appears to be a public
relations arms race between the two and while it helps to have the
issue in the public eye, potential voters feel a little uneasy over
the one-upmanship in evidence.
Perhaps they should consider putting
politics aside and uniting around a common cause. Political
campaigns have their place but voters – still jaundiced by the MPs’
expenses scandal – might just prefer it if, on this occasion, overt
politics took more of a back seat."
I could be mistaken of course. What do you
think?
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I've just been attending what must be the longest-titled
committee meeting ever. It was the "Joint Meeting of
Children, Families and Education Resources & Infrastructure,
Learning & Development and Vulnerable Children &
Partnerships Policy Overview Committees."
So large was this gathering that it was held in the council
chamber, normally the venue for meetings of the full council.
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When KCC first decided to set up Kent TV, quite
a lot of people commented on the fact that they hadn't been
consulted over the issue of whether they wanted £1.4million of
their money spent on the project.
Now there is a review of the project's future, it seems they
could be struggling to make their voice heard again.
According to KCC's latest Forward
Plan, setting out the important decisions it expects to take
over the next few months, consultation on this review will be
"internal" only.
Expect a decision just before Christmas on its fate.
Friday, September 18 2009