Rother council moves ahead with executive restructure

Rother District Council is to move ahead with a major restructuring of its senior leadership, with its two executive directors potentially set to be replaced by a single chief executive.
By Huw Oxburgh, Local Democracy Reporter
Published 18th Aug 2020, 16:30 BST
Bexhill Town Hall SUS-161205-111335001Bexhill Town Hall SUS-161205-111335001
Bexhill Town Hall SUS-161205-111335001

On Monday (August 17), the council’s cabinet agreed to begin the process of appointing a new chief executive.

The next stage of the process, including the appropriate salary scale, will be considered in more detail by the council’s licensing and general purposes committee in September. 

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Doug Oliver, council leader, said: “This is effectively bringing together the report that the executive directors produced in November of last year and as a result of where we are in the Covid situation, we are going in this direction

“This is very much going to be in the hands of the licensing and general purposes committee when they meet on September 3.”

Currently the council has no chief executive but has two executive directors – Malcolm Johnston and Dr Tony Leonard – who share the role’s responsibilities. It is understood that the new role will be “ringfenced”, so that only Mr Johnston and Dr Leonard could apply.

According to meeting papers, the new chief executive would initially only be in place for a single year, with a members’ panel conducting regular performance reviews throughout this period.

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The council has budgeted up to £10,000 to create a framework for these performance reviews.

At the end of one year there would be a full council vote on whether to retain the postholder or to open up competition to external candidates.

The measure would be expected to bring in an annual saving of around £111,000 per year, although this will be taken up by redundancy costs in the first year.

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