The leader of Cheshire East Council and a former mayor have said the council has not been run well enough since it was formed in 2009 and “needs to raise its game”, writes Belinda Ryan.
Council leader Nick Mannion (Lab) and last year’s mayor Rod Fletcher (Lib Dem) were speaking during a debate on the governance of the council and the need to look at how the committee system operates.
And it comes following a damning peer challenge review from the Local Government Association (LGA) earlier this year.
Cllr Fletcher told the full council: “Since 2009 the way this council has been run by the various administrations has been poor, to say the least.”
He said there was a problem with silo working under both the cabinet system – which had operated under the previous Conservative administration – and the present committee system.
“As far as the committee system is concerned, the chairs should be liaising better with one another,” he said.
“All we need is better liaison between the chairs of committees so that we can then move forward as recommended by the LGA.”
The LGA corporate peer challenge was critical of many aspects of Cheshire East’s operation.
The report, which was published in July, warned the council would be facing effective bankruptcy if it didn’t change at pace.
One of the main recommendations to come from the LGA was the council needs to urgently review its decision-making framework ‘to avoid siloed working across committees’.
Cllr Mannion said it was job of councillors to provide strategic direction to Cheshire East Council as it goes forward, “and, as Cllr Fletcher very pertinently pointed out, that has not been delivered in a brilliant way since Cheshire East has been created in 2009″.
The council leader added: “We have an opportunity to go forward with this process and come up with a governance system that represents everybody, is transparent, and delivers decision-making in an efficient, effective and prompt way…. and that is what the Local Government Association are telling us that we need to do.
“We need to raise our game.”
Cheshire East Council needs to make savings of approximately £100m over the next four years and at the beginning of yesterday’s meeting, the council leader had warned: “There will be pain ahead.
“As I said back in July, we can no longer afford to do everything everywhere, for everybody all the time,” said Cllr Mannion, adding the vulnerable would be protected.
Deputy leader Michael Gorman (Ind) told the meeting: “The really good news, is that this administration has a plan, a clear and comprehensive transformation plan to secure the financial stability of Cheshire East.
“It has been submitted to government and is now being put into place at pace with the support of members and staff alike.”
The council also approved a new senior management structure.
Eric Shaw – Correct. It appears the new Director Officer level is to be increased. Some senior salary grades have been found in an appendix. They took some time to find. CEC should also improve the Committee reports system and reduce the appendices. The report in the main should be the prime document.
Cheshire East is basically just too large an area to be managed properly. Before reorganisation we had Local Authorities like Crewe&Nantwich Borough Council etc which were well run and responded to the needs of local people. The Services were, for the most part, efficient and cost effective. The Committee system worked well and Committee Chairs had a close working relationship with the Departmental Chief Officers. This has all now crashed. Committee Chairs seem to have no control over what is happening in their areas of responsibility, Directors have such wide ranging responsibilities they are incapable of managing them effectively, example the Director of Place, who knows what he does?
The apparent answer is to join together with another Local Authority which will actually make things worse.
The whole system needs putting into a bag and shaking up. New Committee system, new Departmental system and new people running the show both at member and officer level.
Nothing will change with CEC, only thing guaranteed, our rates will go up, services will go down and Councillors will still continue to rake in expenses on top of their wages. You make a complaint on Fix My Street, and nothing happens with that complaint – been waiting since January this year for road gullies to be cleared of grass, mud etc. Carbuncle new car park, makes just £75.00 per day, but not on a Sunday as it’s closed. Didn’t need multi storey car park, when there are hardly any shops. Infrastructure is none existent.
That’s the first thing anyone has said from this council that I can actually believe, now they have admitted that the their performance is at best poor they need to have a good look at the structure of the council and the skill and ability of the decision makers needs to be addressed and appropriate action taken before they go bust.
There are 82 Councillors, each getting various levels of remunerations. Surely a few must have been aware of the imminent financial problem that was to occur. You only need to see the reports and the lack of basic details not included for public consumption. I suspect there are additional papers not available to the public. CEC needs a major restructure, the article refers to this but can anyone tell me how to find it. Thanks.
Cheshire East Council on occasions has evidenced incompetence. This evidenced by the waste of many thousands of pounds adding up into millions. HS2 spending 11million without securing funding from central government. Did Crewe really need a multi story car park at 11million. pounds. A home for drug dealers and drug users. The purchase of mobile phones without a effective business case and criteria. Was it 300 phones in storage. The list goes on . The information just leaks out over time. What else don’t the public know about.
When you assume Cheshire East is not unique what is the cost to the tax payer across the country of waste in the Local Authorities, that are there to represent their communities and deliver effective services, providing value.
It needs a really tough Chief Executive and Counsellors who will get a grip.
I rest my case.
You have to ask your self these questions.
My perception is no one is held accountable, responsible, dismissed from office either as a Counsellor, Director, Executive, Senior Manager.
It is tax payers money !! It does not matter !!
There plenty more where that has come from.
Sadly it is all done in the name of democracy and that is a total joke!!!
The last thing counsellors, directors and executive represent is the communities they are appointed to serve.
Naturally there will be some individuals who work with a passion for the community.
I am at a point of total despair.
Hit the nail on the head. Before moving back to cheshire and trying to decide where to move to, Nantwich “being in Cheshire east and not cheshire west” was one of the cons we listed. I had an idea of how badly it was run from friends, but nothing truly prepared me for just how completely inept this bunch of idiots actually are.
I’ve lived in Conwy, Liverpool, Tameside, Manchester, Salford council areas, and I’ve never experienced the string of ineptitude that I have with CECC. And to top it, we put in countless complaints to CECC planning about our housebuilder’s complete disregard to planning conditions, warning them the builder was likely to go into liquidation. They did nothing, and sure enough, liquidation came.
I just cannot comprehend the utter stupidity of this group of people, for everything you’ve listed and more. If they weren’t in the civil service, many at the top simply would have been sacked. Stupid breeds stupid, and until there’s a bankruptcy and the whole sack of rotten apples is thrown out, I can’t see anything changing