SOUTH SOMERSET NEWS: Council to start journey on terminating chief exec’s contract

COUNCILLORS have agreed to “start out on a journey” towards saving South Somerset District Council £90,000 a year with the early termination of the authority’s “shared” chief executive.

The council met for the first time last night (Thursday, May 21, 2015) following the local elections earlier this month and the first major topic for members to chew over and debate across the chamber was relieving Mark Williams of his chief exec duties in South Somerset.

The council set up an agreement in 2010 with East Devon District Council about “sharing” Mr Williams and that was extended 12 months ago to run until the end of September 2018.

But Mr Williams has been so successful at South Somerset that some councillors believe that his services are no longer required with him having nurtured the authority’s own senior management team to step up and take over his role.

A report has said that the compensation required for South Somerset to pay East Devon for the early termination of Mr Williams’ contract will be £112,333.

But the new Conservative group leader at South Somerset, Cllr Tim Inglefield, was not entirely convinced that the authority should go ploughing ahead with the contract termination.

He said councillors did not “have enough information to come to a view and find it difficult to ascertain.” Cllr Inglefield said that he would want the issue deferred until further details were known.

But council leader, Cllr Ric Pallister, said it was crucial to “set off on a journey” and start discussing with their colleagues at East Devon.

“We need to start discussions with East Devon,” he said. “The full financial implications won’t be known until we have these discussions. I’m not pushing anything hard now, but we just to start the discussions.

“If we need to make savings – we need to look at contracts we don’t necessarily need.”

PHOTO - RIGHT: South Somerset's "shared" chief executive Mark Williams.

He said that by terminating the contract with East Devon and managing the chief executive role from within would save South Somerset around £90,000 a year.

“We don’t want to go out and get another chief executive officer and spend shed loads of money,” said Cllr Pallister. “We have the senior management team here to make that transition.”

Issues regarding notice period, notice arrangements and termination costs will have to be discussed and then brought back to full council.

Although it was eventually decided – not unanimously – to go-ahead with discussions with East Devon about terminating Mr Williams’ contract early, there were some sharp exchanges between the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives.

It was queried by new Tory member Cllr Neil Bloomfield as to why the council needed to make more savings, when it had already agreed savings at its budget setting meeting earlier this year.

But LibDem member, Cllr Sylvia Seal, said: “We are playing games here. You’ve got to be dim as dishwater if you don’t think we will have to make savings in the coming years.”

That prompted Conservative member, Cllr Derek Yeomans, said that the “atmosphere had changed” for the worse since Cllr Seal’s outburst.

Council leader, Cllr Pallister, stepped in to say that on occasions political views had to be put aside and the authority needed to work together – with this being one occasion.

“We need to work together on this,” he said. “If we don’t want to do that – find a new leader.”

And the Tory group leader, Cllr Inglefield, said: “I believe we can work together on this.”

Tags:
News.