Legal chief quits cash-strapped Cheshire East Council

Cash-strapped Cheshire East Council is having to cough up tens of thousands of pounds to recruitment agencies and interim staff because it is haemorrhaging top bosses, writes Belinda Ryan.

The latest to leave is monitoring officer David Brown, who was the council’s longest serving legal chief having been at the authority for nearly four years.

The local democracy reporting service only became aware of it after receiving an out-of-office email when trying to contact him, stating Mr Brown no longer worked for the council.

Within the past year Cheshire East has also lost former chief executive Lorraine O’Donnell, who moved to Bradford Council and head of finance and S151 officer Alex Thompson, who quit in May to join Sandwell Council.

Deborah Woodcock resigned as executive director of children’s services at the end of July and former executive director of place Jayne Traverse has also gone.

A spokesperson for Cheshire East Council said: “David Brown, monitoring officer and director of governance and compliance, left Cheshire East Council on 31 August to seek a new challenge elsewhere.

“David joined the council during the middle of the Covid pandemic, a time that was challenging to all local councils, and immediately got to work with introducing a new committee system of governance within six months. We would like to thank David for his dedication to the council and wish him all the best for the future.

“Janet Witkowski is the council’s acting monitoring officer and director of governance and compliance, in the interim period until a permanent appointment is made.”

The cost to the council at a time of much uncertainty is not just stability but also financial.

Recruitment costs for some top posts are massive.

When former chief exec Dr O’Donnell left, Cheshire East spent more than £37,500 on a “rigorous recruitment and selection process” to appoint her replacement Rob Polkinghorne.

The council also paid for an interim chief executive for the period between Dr O’Donnell leaving in October and Mr Polkinghorne starting in January.

This post was filled by David Parr OBE, who was contracted at a daily rate of £1,200 and worked three days a week.

While recruitment costs for the other executive directors may not be as high as for the chief exec – and will not be known at this stage – they will still be substantial at a time when the council can least afford it.

And in the case of the S151 officer, again the council has had to appoint an interim.

Adele Taylor has been interim S151 and head of finance since June, at a cost to the council of £1,298 a day.

Of this, £198 a day goes to the recruitment agency.

In the case of other unfilled posts, existing council staff have been acting up.

Peter Skates has been acting executive director of place for several months and deputy monitoring officer Janet Witkowski has stepped up to become interim director of governance and compliance and monitoring officer, following the departure of Mr Brown.

Cheshire East has had 11 monitoring officers since the council was formed in 2009, including five interims.

This year has also seen both the leader and deputy leader of the council stand down from the top roles.

Former leader Sam Corcoran (Lab) has been replaced by Cllr Nick Mannion and former deputy Craig Browne (Ind) has been replaced by Cllr Michael Gorman (Ind).