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Rochford District Council
Rochford District Council
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Interview with Paul Warren, Chief Executive of the RDC (9th May 2011)
Over the months we have sought to build up a picture of the life and activity of Rochford District Council as we have interviewed a number of the elected Councillors. Crossing the divide to the paid officers, we could do no better that go to the top and ask the Chief Executive, Paul Warren, on his views on some of the aspects of the Council.
Once or twice we covered ground previously covered, but we think you’ll agree with us when you read this interview, that Paul presents a particularly clear picture of his role and relationship with the Councillors.
It is a fairly lengthy interview and, as we have done before, we have provided subtitles to make the discussion content stand out more clearly. You will see we discuss who he is, and then his work in Rochford, then on to what drives the Council activities. We then went on to consider openness of government, the volume of information that is available today and the difficulties of conveying it, and then the specific example of recycling. After this we moved on to policy making and budgets and spending, and concluded with the ‘hot potatoes’ of local Housing and the local Infrastructure.
We believe you will find this a highly informative and useful interview and we would thank Paul again, for taking time out from his very busy schedule to speak to us.
Who is the Chief Exec?
Rochford Life: One of the councillors said in a previous interview, that you are probably the most helpful and most knowledgeable person on this Council. This suggests you are somebody who has a great deal of information and presumably a great deal of contact with the councillors themselves and we would assume, somebody who has the best oversight of the whole of the workings of the Council.
Paul: I think basically, my knowledge of the Council stems from the fact that I have been here since late 1993 when I started as Director of Development, which I was for about two years, and then I became Director of the Environmental Services when the Council determined there should be some organisational change, and so then I took on Refuse Collection, Open Spaces and Parks. Following that I became Corporate Director, External Services, which meant I took on some of the external functions of the Council such as housing and housing benefits and the like. Subsequently I became Chief Executive in 1998 so I’ve now been in that role thirteen, going on fourteen, years, so I suppose in that sense I’ve got quite a lot of knowledge of the Council, the functions of the Council, and of the members of the Council.
RL: Who have changed a few times?
Paul: I think since I became Chief Executive, we were first Lib-Dem, then we went through a period where there was actually a Labour minority administration with, at the time, the Independents, and then there was another period of Lib-Dem administration and then since 2002 we’ve been Conservative, so I think in my time I’ve had five or six leaders of all shades. I suppose given that experience in one authority, you do build up an awful lot of knowledge, in some cases by default, simply by being there. Hopefully, one of the things I’ve tried to be this period is be as approachable as I can be and so if there are any queries from any members, and If there’s anything we can do, or I can do to help them, providing advice and guidance, that’s what I see part of my role as being.
RL: Can you tell us your background, where you came from?
Paul: I was born in the West Country, in Plymouth, I was educated at Manchester University, where I took a degree in Town Planning. My first job was actually in the Midlands in Tamworth in Staffordshire. I then moved to London and worked as a Planner on a number of projects in Brent in Planning, but later on what I call area management in city work, working in Kilburn, Willesden Green, and Neasden. I worked in Brent in a number of different guises and then moved out to Hertfordshire in Broxbourne council, working in Cheshunt, Waltham Cross, and Hoddesdon, and worked as Assistant Director, Planning and Environment, there, and then from there to Director of Development at Rochford. I think I’ve been dealing with quite a number of different activities since my area management days in the London Borough of Brent where, from an area management point of view, you were looking at how the authority brought together a number of services at the local level.
And now in Rochford
RL: Now you have some two hundred plus people underneath you?
Paul: Yes, it’s a result of some of the organisational change that we do about every two or three years and as a result of some of the budget requirements that we’ve now got. We’ve reduced the number of staff to just over two hundred. If you look at the organisation, there is the core staff employed by the Council of just over two hundred and then, in addition to that, we have a number of external providers who provide services on behalf of the Council in a number of areas, such as refuse collection, leisure provision, grounds maintenance, IT service provision. These are all provided by private companies who work with us on what we call partnering contracts.
RL: Do the number of departments that you have, do they match the number of Portfolio holders or are there slightly fewer than that?
Paul: There’s slightly fewer. What we’ve tried to do is match the portfolio holders with the departments in terms of functions. One of my functional managers is head of Community Services but Community Services also includes the leisure provision as well as housing benefits and as well as some of the other community provision, so that particular manager has, in effect, three portfolio holders who he may have to deal with. Generally speaking we try to have a number of functions aligned to the portfolio holder, although in some cases spread of activity is such that we have to have two portfolio holders, particularly where there is division within departments, in the various functions.
What drives the Council?
RL: How much of your activity is divided, shall we say, between Government direction, Councillor direction, and your own wisdom?
Paul: That’s a very hard question. Recently within the budgetary analysis we looked at how much of our money is actually spent on things that, I suppose, could be defined as statutory provision. If you look at our net core budget, it is around £11M, and about £9M of that is probably statutory provision.
That said, we only get a grant of under £4M so in effect whichever government is in power, they usually create a lot of legislation and I don’t believe ever provide the appropriate level of resource to deal with that particular piece of legislation.
Over the months we have sought to build up a picture of the life and activity of Rochford District Council as we have interviewed a number of the elected Councillors. Crossing the divide to the paid officers, we could do no better that go to the top and ask the Chief Executive, Paul Warren, on his views on some of the aspects of the Council.
Once or twice we covered ground previously covered, but we think you’ll agree with us when you read this interview, that Paul presents a particularly clear picture of his role and relationship with the Councillors.
It is a fairly lengthy interview and, as we have done before, we have provided subtitles to make the discussion content stand out more clearly. You will see we discuss who he is, and then his work in Rochford, then on to what drives the Council activities. We then went on to consider openness of government, the volume of information that is available today and the difficulties of conveying it, and then the specific example of recycling. After this we moved on to policy making and budgets and spending, and concluded with the ‘hot potatoes’ of local Housing and the local Infrastructure.
We believe you will find this a highly informative and useful interview and we would thank Paul again, for taking time out from his very busy schedule to speak to us.
Who is the Chief Exec?
Rochford Life: One of the councillors said in a previous interview, that you are probably the most helpful and most knowledgeable person on this Council. This suggests you are somebody who has a great deal of information and presumably a great deal of contact with the councillors themselves and we would assume, somebody who has the best oversight of the whole of the workings of the Council.
Paul: I think basically, my knowledge of the Council stems from the fact that I have been here since late 1993 when I started as Director of Development, which I was for about two years, and then I became Director of the Environmental Services when the Council determined there should be some organisational change, and so then I took on Refuse Collection, Open Spaces and Parks. Following that I became Corporate Director, External Services, which meant I took on some of the external functions of the Council such as housing and housing benefits and the like. Subsequently I became Chief Executive in 1998 so I’ve now been in that role thirteen, going on fourteen, years, so I suppose in that sense I’ve got quite a lot of knowledge of the Council, the functions of the Council, and of the members of the Council.
RL: Who have changed a few times?
Paul: I think since I became Chief Executive, we were first Lib-
RL: Can you tell us your background, where you came from?
Paul: I was born in the West Country, in Plymouth, I was educated at Manchester University, where I took a degree in Town Planning. My first job was actually in the Midlands in Tamworth in Staffordshire. I then moved to London and worked as a Planner on a number of projects in Brent in Planning, but later on what I call area management in city work, working in Kilburn, Willesden Green, and Neasden. I worked in Brent in a number of different guises and then moved out to Hertfordshire in Broxbourne council, working in Cheshunt, Waltham Cross, and Hoddesdon, and worked as Assistant Director, Planning and Environment, there, and then from there to Director of Development at Rochford. I think I’ve been dealing with quite a number of different activities since my area management days in the London Borough of Brent where, from an area management point of view, you were looking at how the authority brought together a number of services at the local level.
And now in Rochford
RL: Now you have some two hundred plus people underneath you?
Paul: Yes, it’s a result of some of the organisational change that we do about every two or three years and as a result of some of the budget requirements that we’ve now got. We’ve reduced the number of staff to just over two hundred. If you look at the organisation, there is the core staff employed by the Council of just over two hundred and then, in addition to that, we have a number of external providers who provide services on behalf of the Council in a number of areas, such as refuse collection, leisure provision, grounds maintenance, IT service provision. These are all provided by private companies who work with us on what we call partnering contracts.
RL: Do the number of departments that you have, do they match the number of Portfolio holders or are there slightly fewer than that?
Paul: There’s slightly fewer. What we’ve tried to do is match the portfolio holders with the departments in terms of functions. One of my functional managers is head of Community Services but Community Services also includes the leisure provision as well as housing benefits and as well as some of the other community provision, so that particular manager has, in effect, three portfolio holders who he may have to deal with. Generally speaking we try to have a number of functions aligned to the portfolio holder, although in some cases spread of activity is such that we have to have two portfolio holders, particularly where there is division within departments, in the various functions.
What drives the Council?
RL: How much of your activity is divided, shall we say, between Government direction, Councillor direction, and your own wisdom?
Paul: That’s a very hard question. Recently within the budgetary analysis we looked at how much of our money is actually spent on things that, I suppose, could be defined as statutory provision. If you look at our net core budget, it is around £11M, and about £9M of that is probably statutory provision.
That said, we only get a grant of under £4M so in effect whichever government is in power, they usually create a lot of legislation and I don’t believe ever provide the appropriate level of resource to deal with that particular piece of legislation.
I would say that in government generally for a number of years, there has been a lot of top-down stuff and particularly around some of the key issues within a District authority. A lot of the planning stuff has been top-down with a lot of government guidance and a lot of government directives.
That is slightly easing but there is still pressure around determining what you deliver on behalf of government in particular areas so, while the target culture, the top-down culture is gone, there are still undoubtedly pressure. For example, are you providing sufficient housing units across and area to meet the housing need requirement of that area, or are you recycling enough so that you are not paying money in taxes on landfill etc. etc.
That will always be here but I probably would say that a substantial proportion of the activity of a District Council is still determined within the overall framework provided by the legislation of government. Having said that, members still have choices to make as to how they resource it and how they deliver that particular service and how they interpret that legislation.
I suppose my role within that is to advise them of their options, and also whether there are alternative solutions we should be looking at. It will be interesting to see, as central government talks about localism, as to how that actually translates into the legislative framework and whether that does actually mean that the balance switches from central government to a more localist agenda.
Open Government, the Information Available & Communicating it
RL: Is localism going to put a pressure on for more open government , more transparent government?
Paul: Well I would say we’re quite transparent now. We hold our meetings in public, all our paperwork is public. We’ve got few secrets, if any at all. We try and do the majority of our business within the public arena, as opposed to private confidentially, and in fact probably if you look back over the past few years, most of the member paperwork is within the public domain. We also have the legislative requirements of the Freedom of Information Act so we work within that, so I would say we’re quite open as it is. Whether the public recognise how open local government is, I sometimes have my doubts.
RL: I am fairly sure that if I went out and stopped the first ten people in the street and asked them what they know of the Council, most of them would say virtually nothing.
Paul: Which is both worrying and concerning because I think the Council is a transparent organisation. If you go on to our web-site, for example, there is very little information that you cannot find out about the Council. It tells you about everything, from matters of most interest, decisions that we are taking, the reports behind those decisions, what planning applications were in during the last week, public information about what events we’re holding, when the waste is being collected over bank holiday periods, so everything is on there.
Certainly when we’ve done public workshops, and we’ve got quite a few sounding boards across the general public who we try and engage with in testing what people’s views are of the Council, and what information they think the Council holds, certainly I think the majority of people don’t quite comprehend the level of information that is out there. I suppose there are two barriers aren’t there: one, a lot of information is in the domain of the web-site and so the first barrier is, ‘Are you IT literate or not, have you got access to a web-site, and if you do, would your first reaction be to go to the Rochford web-site to look for the stuff?’ We are finding that more and more people within this community are becoming web-literate, 60% – 70 %, so over time that figure should grow.
The issue for all Councils and all people in public service, is how do you reach the parts that don’t have access to the web and therefore you’re always going to have to provide information and a range of medium from the written words to general public information in obvious places, through to hopefully engaging with the local media, local newspapers, local radio etc. to try to get the messages out. I think we’ve got quite a good relationship with the local media. That said, people will always demand more information.
I suppose my role within that is to advise them of their options, and also whether there are alternative solutions we should be looking at. It will be interesting to see, as central government talks about localism, as to how that actually translates into the legislative framework and whether that does actually mean that the balance switches from central government to a more localist agenda.
Open Government, the Information Available & Communicating it
RL: Is localism going to put a pressure on for more open government , more transparent government?
Paul: Well I would say we’re quite transparent now. We hold our meetings in public, all our paperwork is public. We’ve got few secrets, if any at all. We try and do the majority of our business within the public arena, as opposed to private confidentially, and in fact probably if you look back over the past few years, most of the member paperwork is within the public domain. We also have the legislative requirements of the Freedom of Information Act so we work within that, so I would say we’re quite open as it is. Whether the public recognise how open local government is, I sometimes have my doubts.
RL: I am fairly sure that if I went out and stopped the first ten people in the street and asked them what they know of the Council, most of them would say virtually nothing.
Paul: Which is both worrying and concerning because I think the Council is a transparent organisation. If you go on to our web-
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