New NCC Management Structure

The new senior management structure for NCC is up on the website, following news at the end of last year that there was to be a minor bloodletting. One or two interesting points spring to mind.

Firstly, there is no longer a Director for Housing or Director for Workplace Strategy. This slightly ups my optimism that maybe Geoff Hibbert is on his way out after all. However, there is a new post called Director for Property in the new 'Development' department and I imagine he's probably wormed his way into that one.

Also, the Director for Customer Services has disappeared, previously held by my old mucker Helen Shipway. Wonder what's happened to her? She was probably quite vulnerable in the night of the long lives as she is a relatively recent recruit.

It would also be interesting to know where Housing Benefits has been placed, there's nothing immediately obvious.

However, by far the most interesting aspect is that there are three Directors who now report directly to the Chief Executive rather than to a Corporate Director. That's somewhat unconventional so why would they do that?

Well my suspicion is that it is all down to Jon Collins, as most things at NCC are. The three directorships are 'Partnerships', 'Communications' and the Chief Executive of 'One Nottingham'. I think these three areas are JoCo's main tools for exerting control in the wider environment. Communications is obvious, always best to have close control of the spin, Partnerships is of course the way NCC gets to push other organisations around and conclude the business that it would rather be kept from prying eyes and of course 'One Nottingham', currently being run by his bezzie mate Nigel Cooke, is the centre for many little pet schemes.

So JoCo would clearly prefer these Directors to report directly to him. I know they nominally report to Jane Todd but really that's pretty much the same thing.

Management Issues

For the second meeting in a row, the Appointments and Conditions of Service Committee is considering a review of senior salary levels at NCC.

So what can I tell you about their thoughts? Bugger all, pretty much. It's all going on behind closed doors, as decided under Section 100A(4) of the Local Government Act 1972. This provision allows councils to vote to consider an item of business without the public being present if it involves 'exempt information'.

Exempt Information is defined by Schedule 12A of the Act and includes any labour relations matter and this will of course include senior posts. However, there is a proviso in most cases which requires a public interest consideration and discussions should only be kept private if the public interest of doing so outweighs any public interest of it being public.

Interestingly, at the 7 July meeting, the committee was also discussing a report about discretionary compensation which, from context appears to concern the payment of higher than statutory severence payments. However, again I don't know for sure as it's all exempt so the minutes only contain the barest bones of what was discussed. But apparently it was option (d) that won them over...

There appears to be some wider interest in such matters. The Beeb recently reported that the Audit Commission is about to look into the issue of big pay-offs to council Chief Execs, in particular ater a fallout with the political leadership. They don't actually mention Jon Collins and Michael Frater but I reckon that, bearing in mind JoCo's, ah, 'temperament', NCC should be watching this one very carefully, it stands to save us £100ks in the long run.

So, back to my original point. If NCC is conducting a review of senior salaries can they really justify doing it in private? After all, they quite happily disclosed Jane Todd's temporary salary before she got the permanent job. Senior managers accept that there is an element of public scrutiny of how much they get paid. So is this a 'public interest' question or a 'political embarrassment' question? Not that NCC seems to see any difference between the two.

In other news, which doesn't reflect too well on NCC's senior management, the 'Post' is reporting on the last staff survey at NCC. There's a summary here, it doesn't make pretty reading.