Alsager: Cheshire East Council spent over £37,500 to appoint new chief executive
By Belinda Ryan - Local Democracy Reporter 23rd Jan 2024
Cheshire East Council spent more than £37,500 on a 'rigorous recruitment and selection process' to appoint its new chief executive.
The Local Democracy Reporting Service asked for the total costs after listening in to a meeting of the appointments committee in the summer, where it became clear the process of recruiting and appointing a new top boss wasn't going to be cheap.
Today we can reveal the council spent £37,736.84 just on the recruitment process.
This can be broken down into:
- executive search £18,947.37
- advertising £12,894.74
- psychometric assessments and tools £3,789.47
- technical assessor £2,105.26
By law, the council must have a chief executive.
Cheshire East began its search for its new top boss in August when Dr Lorraine O'Donnell announced she was leaving.
During a meeting of the appointments committee in September, it was revealed the costly recruitment process would involve the council first paying a company to select an executive search agency.
That search agency, also paid for by the council, would then work with Cheshire East in the recruitment and selection process for the new chief executive.
The appointments committee also recommended the new chief exec's salary be increased, with now outgoing deputy council leader Craig Browne (Alderley Edge, Ind) saying at the time the suggested lowest starting salary point for a new chief executive of £160,000 was 'simply too low'.
He said Cheshire West and Chester Council, which is a smaller authority, had just appointed a step-up candidate on just under £167,000, 'so that immediately tells me that £160,000 is simply too low a starting point for this position'.
In October, full council then voted through a salary band of between £170,000 to £190,000 for the post of chief executive.
An amendment put forward by Labour at that meeting to keep the lowest level at £160,000, failed.
Dr O'Donnell's salary package had been £159,405.
Cheshire East's new chief executive, Rob Polkinghorne, took up his post at the beginning of this month.
In the interim period – between Dr O'Donnell leaving in October and Mr Polkinghorne taking over – the post was filled by David Parr OBE, who was contracted at a daily rate of £1,200.
Agency fees meant the cost to Cheshire East for the interim chief exec was actually £1,380 a day.
Mr Parr worked the equivalent of three days a week.
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