Cheshire East is paying a temporary senior officer £1154 a day in order to avoid the risk of "serious reputational damage to the Council".
The Council says that they had an immediate requirement to appoint a Director of Governance and Compliance, which incorporates the Statutory Monitoring Officer role.
Due to the urgency, the Acting Chief Executive Kath O'Dwyer took the decision in consultation with Cabinet members, the Chairman and Vice Chairman of the Staffing Committee, the Mayor and the Council's Political Group Leaders.
A report prepared for a meeting of the Council's Staffing Committee to be held on April 25th confirms that the appointee is being paid a daily rate is £995 plus a 16% management fee to the agency. Which means the cost to taxpayers is £1154 per day - £5770 a week.
A new Corporate Services structure came into effect on 1st April 2019 at Cheshire East Council and included a new post of Director of Governance and Compliance. The range of responsibilities of this post differs from that of the previous Director of Legal Services role.
There has been an acting up arrangement in place, with Daniel Dickinson taking on the post of Director of Legal Services since April 2017 due to the absence and subsequent resignation of the previous post-holder. This acting up arrangement ended on 31st March 2019.
In her report for the Staffing Committee, Sara Duncalf, Acting HR Business Partner, wrote "The Director of Governance and Compliance is also the Monitoring Officer and therefore the appointment would normally be made by Council.
"As the next Council meeting does not take place until 22 May, there would have been an unacceptable risk to the Council in being without a Monitoring Officer for the period between 1 April and 22 May 2019. There could also have been serious reputational damage to the Council."
She added "The daily rate for the post is more than that for a permanent appointment. However, it is short-term and the cost will be offset against the salary already budgeted for the post until an appointment is made, and managed within the approved budget for Governance and Compliance."
Comments
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Rid ourselves of this incompetent, expensive CEC Catalogue of Expanding Catastrophes at the ballot box in 15 days time vote for representatives who listen and respond to residents and not the flawed cabinet controlled party system we have suffered... Residents cant afford this expensive failure at CEC to continue.. vote independent !
Somebody needs to inform the lady that CE Council has already acquired extremely "serious reputational damage" by its malevolent antics over the past years.
Where do we start? Ah yes, Lyme Green charade for starters,then is it 7 or 8 police investigations?, some are still continuing, numerous executives on long term gardening duties (CE must have the best garden displays in the North West), CoSocius (as), Tatton Park "fun fair" and it goes on and on. Please check for the updated version with Private Eye's Rotten Boroughs blog, and then the Wilmslow car parking fiasco and on and on.
And this is before we cast our eyes over the Conservative's glorious, wonderful electioneering leaflets - some talk of their "vision", reasons to give 'em a vote because they will be carrying on the good work. A vote to "carry on" as before because they collectively did such a destructive job on Wilmslow & the borough over the past 8 years. I think not.
So much Sara Duncalf for CECs reputational damage - the damage it has inflicted on Wilmslow and the wider area. Would you vote for more of the same?
I'm trying to work out what's being said here, but it seems to me that the fact that there wouldn't be a Statutory Monitoring Officer in post on 1 April was something known well before 1 April, and that it should have been possible to have made the necessary appointment in time. So did someone "only just notice" that this hadn't in fact been done, and therefore had to make the emergency appointment to cover the omission? So who then failed to notice the problem in advance?
Councils have picked up such titles from their invention by NHS, Police and Network Rail, who are flawed by the same structure. A reduction of 40% of senior management would probably not affect the daily running of the Council. It is high time the country insist on the restructure of company and organisation management and condemn the existence of remuneration committees or non-executive directors, I feel.