Borough’s new chief

• I WISH Camden’s departing chief executive Moira Gibb every success going forward. 

While we have not always seen eye-to-eye, she has provided safe stewardship for a very busy and demanding borough and will leave a hole that desperately needs to be filled by the right person. 

Camden’s Labour leadership must not fall into the trap of seeking a “like-for-like” replacement for Ms Gibb. 

It would be all too easy to accept the list of the senior officers from other local authorities that will be touted around by a public sector head-hunter and appoint Janet or John Safepairofhands, who has earned their spurs in easy times running a top-performing council somewhere like Gatescastle or Rotherwark. 

This would be a mistake. 

The public finances of the UK took a severe nose-dive under the stewardship of Gordon Brown and whoever comes in as Camden’s new chief executive will face a prolonged challenge to deliver services to residents in imaginative ways under the tightest of purse-strings. 

He or she will have to be open to sharing services and staff with other local authorities, as well as to working with the voluntary and private sectors. They will also need a keen sense of how to generate revenue from advertising and sponsorship. A knowledge of how many private companies have saved costs in areas such as accountancy, computing, personnel and procurement would also be desirable. 

So the standard list of names provided by a public sector head-hunter simply will not do.

Camden’s Labour leader has said he will “talk with other party leaders over the  recruitment process”.

I hope he’ll do much more than this and that together we’ll be able to find a candidate with the reforming zeal to ensure that the services residents want can be delivered in a sustainable way long into the future.

CLLR ANDREW MENNEAR
Conservative Group Leader
& Frognal & Fitzjohns ward 

Published: 14 July, 2011