Chief exec tells council to scrap role and boost commercial skills instead

A county council will next month consider whether to scrap the post of chief executive in its current format after the incumbent recommended a move from the traditional local government role.

David White had been asked to conduct a review at Norfolk County Council with a view to the council becoming, amongst other things, a more commercially focussed, entrepreneurial and efficient organisation.

The review was originally meant to report to Cabinet in April next year. However, giving his early conclusions to the authority’s personnel committee, White recommended that the council needed its most senior manager to have greater commercial skills and experience if it was to achieve its aspirations.

He proposed that the chief executive’s role be made redundant and a new role and job description by developed.

The committee accepted his recommendation and the proposal will now be considered by the full council on 14 January.

Under the proposals, the chief executive role would be made redundant with effect from 6 April 2013. White, who is paid more than £200,000 a year and has been Norfolk’s chief executive since 2006, would receive a £35,439 payoff.

White said: "The county council has reached another significant milestone in its development. The Cabinet has very clear objectives for the current organisational review, which I support, not least of which is the desire to see the authority much more commercially focused in the future, bringing in more income so it is less reliant on Government grant and able to do more for Norfolk.

"At this stage in the review, it is already crystal clear that the council will need from its managerial leader a level of commercial skill and experience not required from my current post and that I simply do not have.”

White said it was in the best interests of the council that it had time to redefine the current chief executive post and align it more precisely with new policy aspirations.

“It is important that its most senior officer is in place to see through these complex changes over the medium term for the stability of the organisation as a whole,” he said, adding: “That is why I have brought forward this particular conclusion now. Though I will be very sad to leave the authority, this is clearly the necessary next step for the county council to take."

Norfolk’s Leader, Derrick Murphy, said the authority was determined to become much more self-funding in the future, “because that is the best way of ensuring that we continue to deliver high quality public services”.

He added: "So we need our most senior manager to have more of a business and commercial focus to their job and the skills, acumen and level of broader business experience necessary to deliver it well. In this sense, it will see a move away from the traditional local government role.”