Something doesn’t add up

April 24, 2013

I’ve been reading reports in the press about Jill Stannard’s early retirement, and something doesn’t add up (until a few days ago, Jill was the pretty well thought of chief exec of Cumbria County Council).

Voluntary Early Retirement schemes (VER) are well established in the UK, and generally fall into one of two kinds:

  • VER at the employee’s request – once you reach a certain age, you can apply for VER and the company may at its discretion allow you to go with whatever pension you’ve earned
  • VER at the employer’s request – if a company is actively looking to shed employees, you can apply for VER and the company will agree a date at which you can leave, and will ‘top up’ your pension pot so you get the same pension as if you had stayed on to normal retirement age

So which did Jill get? As Chief Exec, it would be highly questionable for her to claim to be leaving at her employer’s request (“I have decided the Council no longer has need of my services”?), so one must assume she is leaving at her own request, i.e. without any top up of her pension pot.

The second odd feature is timing. At a salary of £170k, she’s likely to be on a minimum of six months’ notice. When applying for VER, it is normal for this to be extended until the employer is happy that a smooth transition has been completed. The employer is doing the employee a favour, so the employer dictates the terms. Jill’s departure is proceeding at a hell of a rush. She’ll be out the door at the worst possible time for the Council, right in the middle of elections and the creation of a new administration. “The decision to appoint an interim chief executive will have to be made by full council at a meeting on May 16. It must also put in place ‘acting up’ arrangements for other corporate directors.” Excuse me? this Council hasn’t been elected yet? who is making these decisions for it? Who agreed she could go without at least working her notice?

Finally, the justification that her departure will save money, and that an interim CEO can be appointed at a lower salary, is simply nonsense. No-one is suggesting that Jill was anything but a success in the role. To employ someone of equal calibre on an interim basis will cost more – significantly more, both in salary and expenses given Cumbria’s geography.

So why is this going ahead, right in the middle of an election campaign?

Is there nothing good to come out of this? well, the case for combined authorities (merging county and district into one or more unitary authorities) is overwhelming – see the Scrutiny report produced at the end of the last Council. The new Council could agree to appoint an interim CEO, with the specific remit of negotiating and implementing combined authorities within three years. That would be an appointment well worth making, and could be the best legacy the new council could leave to Cumbria.

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The unintended consequences of Margaret Thatcher

April 11, 2013

What strikes me most about the life and work of Margaret Thatcher is how well it illustrates the law of unintended consequences. Her life’s work was to turn the British people into a nation of hard working, self reliant, market serving capitalists. What she actually achieved was to develop a “something for nothing” culture that inevitably imploded into financial disaster in her dying days.

Who remembers “windfalls” – people frantically opening accounts with local building societies in the hope of forcing them to go public / be gobbled up, destroying these institutions in the name of getting something for nothing?

Who remembers the “tell Sids” – selling off public assets at a loss, so that speculators could immediately cash in their shares and get something for nothing?

Who remembers the sale of council houses – selling off assets at a loss to give the lucky something for nothing, fuelling an overheated housing market and permanently depriving the nation of affordable homes?

Who remembers PFI – giving the appearance of providing new schools, hospitals, etc for nothing (on the government’s balance sheet), but ultimately costing the taxpayer £300 billion and rising?

Who remembers the explosion in dodgy financial “services” which appeared to create vast profits without any tangible underpinnings, something for nothing which inevitably collapsed?

I don’t believe that Mrs Thatcher set out intentionally to create any of this, but this is her real legacy. Her something for nothing culture was so seductive that Tony Blair enthusiastically continued expanding it on long after her fall from power. The country is only now facing up to the real, unintended consequences, of her vision.

My she rest in peace, and may her “-ism” accompany her to the grave.

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UN-deniably impressive

October 10, 2012

As a member of two councils, I spend too much time listening to people making speeches of varying quality. So I took a bit of persuading to volunteer to sit through nearly three hours of speeches today. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find the speakers well-informed, enthusiastic, and capable (comparisons with council chambers are invidious).

The event was organised by the South Lakeland and Lancaster City United Nations Association, who invited local schools to send teams of sixth formers to discuss “The Millennium Development Goals 2015 – are they now achievable?”. The format was simple – the two dozen or so participants were each given a country to represent. They then had to stand up in front of a mock UN General Assembly in the role of their Country’s UN Ambassador and speak to the topic for three minutes, and then in a second session respond to the debate in another one minute speech.

It’s quite an achievement that the speakers kept my attention for the full duration – they had done their research, not only into the detailed facts and figures (“in Afghanistan, a woman is more likely to die in childbirth than a man is in combat”), but also the positions that their countries would be likely to take in the real world.

My four personal winners covered the full range of countries, from the poorest to the richest: Bangladesh, Israel, New Zealand, and the US. All of their ‘ambassadors’ were totally convincing, whether I supported their positions (Bangladesh, New Zealand) or opposed them (Israel, the US). What is even more impressive is that all four came from the same school, which duly won the school’s trophy.

At a time when the UN’s own reputation is arguably at an all time low, it’s good to see this kind of grass roots activity still flourishing, and young people engaging with passion and enthusiasm in topics that most of us are happy to relegate to the tray marked “too difficult”.

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Team GB – thoughts from a small island

August 5, 2012

Team GB are currently lying fourth in the Olympic medals table, an impressive performance:

Rank Country G S B Total
1 United States 26 13 15 54
2 China 25 16 12 53
3 Great Britain & N. Ireland 14 7 8 29
4 South Korea 9 3 5 17
5 France 8 6 8 22
6 Germany 5 10 6 21
7 Italy 5 5 3 13
8 Kazakhstan 5 0 0 5
9 North Korea 4 0 1 5
10 Russian Federation 3 15 10 28

However, this isn’t a fair comparison, as it compares countries with huge populations (and so potentially more high performing athletes) with much smaller countries. If we take this top ten, and divide the total medals by the population of each country, Team GB’s performance is even more impressive:

Rank Country G S B Total Population Total per million population
1 Great Britain & N. Ireland 14 7 8 29 62,641,000 0.46
2 South Korea 9 3 5 17 49,779,000 0.34
3 France 8 6 8 22 65,436,552 0.34
4 Kazakhstan 5 0 0 5 16,558,459 0.30
5 Germany 5 10 6 21 81,726,000 0.26
6 Italy 5 5 3 13 60,626,442 0.21
7 North Korea 4 0 1 5 24,451,285 0.20
8 Russian Federation 3 15 10 28 141,930,000 0.20
9 United States 26 13 15 54 311,591,917 0.17
10 China 25 16 12 53 1,344,130,000 0.04

Go Team GB!

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Better Places for Work

June 27, 2012

Since my election to Cumbria County Council, I’ve had meetings in a number of offices around Carlisle and Kendal. Many of these are in amazing old buildings, wonderful to look at (especially from the outside), but totally impractical as places of work. So I have some sympathy with the Cabinet’s decision to build a new fit-for-purpose headquarters.

This is a major programme for the Council. It’s not just about putting up a new building – it’s about transforming the way Council staff work, with a change in culture to flexible working practices such as hot-desking – “Better Places for Work” (BP4W). So it was disappointing that the last meeting of full council simply approved the nearly £18m spend as recommendation 3.1 b) among a list of other capital items (on page 347 of the agenda…).

So what was missing? At the least, I would have expected Council to be asked to approve the risk register for the programme. From my limited knowledge of the programme, there are some pretty significant risks, e.g.:

  • the programme requires a commitment to a culture shift from a workforce whose morale is poor and who report little confidence in management
  • the programme will be heavily dependent on changes to IT systems at a time when the Council doesn’t even know who will be running its IT systems next year

but these were nowhere to be found in the Council briefing.

The meeting did briefly consider a rather half-hearted amendment to approve only an initial tranche of £8m, but rejected the idea. What would have been better would have been approval of funding, but with a requirement for gateway reviews by independent members at key stages to determine whether the programme is still safe. It is vital that Cabinet and Corporate Directors are fully committed to driving the programme forward, but the history of programme management is full of examples where ‘groupthink’ sets in among a tightly-knit team and causes disasters.

Maybe there is a role for Scrutiny here.

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