£680,000 salaries on offer to lure top officers to city council
EIGHT top officers are being recruited by Stoke-on-Trent City Council – on salaries totalling £680,000.
Two directors and six heads of department are needed to fill high-profile vacancies.
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It is not known how much London-based Penna Executive Recruitment is being paid to advertise the posts.
The advertised jobs are:
Up to £131,000 for the newly-created director of housing, environmental and neighbourhood services. The recruit's job will take in housing, bin collections, street cleaning and grounds maintenance.
About £100,000 for the director of transportation and planning.
A £78,000 salary for the new head of housing services.
Up to £75,000 each for the new head of environmental services and head of neighbourhood services.
About £73,000 each for the head of transport and highways, head of planning and head of human resources.
The recruitment drive comes after key officers quit to join former city council manager Steve Robinson at the new Cheshire West and Chester Council. Since leaving in September, Mr Robinson has been joined by Stoke-on-Trent's head of housing Alan Slater, head of human resources Euan Murdoch-Hollies, head of citywide and neighbourhood services Helen Bailey and former director of central services Julie Gill. In addition, the city's head of highways and transportation, Stuart Davies, has gone to North Wales and planning officer Paul Feehily has moved to Cumbria.
The council still has to find a permanent chief executive on £195,000 a year to replace Mr Robinson. The role is currently being filled by council manager Chris Harman on an interim basis as recruitment is suspended following the arrests of appointment committee members councillor Roger Ibbs and elected mayor Mark Meredith over allegations of political corruption.
Councillor Kieran Clarke, pictured, portfolio holder for resources, said the appointment of the eight senior officers was essential.
He said: "This is an opportunity to fill these vacancies so we will no longer have interim officers.
"The timing is very important as well, as we will soon be moving to new governance arrangements and this means we will have the officer corps in place."
Deputy City Independent group leader councillor Brian Ward said he understood the need to fill the vacant positions, but he questioned whether the large salaries would guarantee the required performance levels.
He said: "We seem to be creating new jobs on top of the vacancies and I'm concerned that the new directorates don't seem to be focused enough. I wonder whether all these highly-paid jobs will give us the results that we want."
6 Comments
by sid, Boothen
Friday, April 03 2009, 7:08PM
“Following on from my previous posting I would also just like to post a question....
Does any Director of the City Council actually live/born in Stoke on Trent?
They just come here to steal jobs from local residents - earn a top whack salary and spend what they have earned in their own Cities. They certainly do not practice what they preach.”
by sid, stoke
Friday, April 03 2009, 6:35PM
“What are the bets that the new recruits all have either Scouse or Wolverhampton accents? Or is that just me being cynical”
by Les, Los Angeles
Friday, April 03 2009, 5:09PM
“"Two directors and six heads" thats eight people with £80,000 + "high-profile" jobs in Stoke.
Could you email me an application, it might be worth moving back...”
by Anthony, Mount Pleasant
Friday, April 03 2009, 4:06PM
“"What is needed is a new party in Staffordshire, one that will put itself forward for local and governmental elections for the people and by the people to ensure waste like this doesn't happen"
And they wonder why people are voting BNP!!”
by christopher, Common Sense Land
Friday, April 03 2009, 2:41PM
“Ok, lets first get this right as yet again, the sentinel has span the story so it appears that each director is getting £680,000... They are NOT, the top salary is £195,000 and the average about £80,000...
Anyway, either way, it's too much money, all of which we the tax payer has to fund.
It might be necessary that this posts are filled, but not at this sort of money, as through precedence, this sort of top wage budget has become the norm, and it is not acceptable, just because you are paid huge amounts of money, it doesn't mean your good at what you do as has been shown previously in Stoke On Trent's (and Newcastle) management administration.
What is needed is a new party in Staffordshire, one that will put itself forward for local and governmental elections for the people and by the people to ensure waste like this doesn't happen and that for the first time in a number of years, those elected into council start really looking after the people of this borough; if not, as time goes on, pen pushing red necks are going to spend more and more of our money and there isn't a thing you can do to stop them.... how they laugh at us all!”
by Paul, Trentham
Friday, April 03 2009, 1:03PM
“Let's throw even more of our money at silver tongued confidence tricksters, who will not be up to the job.
Local government = government of local people, by local people for local people.
In SoT it is government of local people by grossly overpaid, outsider consultants for the benefit of themselves!”