Last month, a vote to approve a temporary senior management role in Bolton to oversee children’s services transformation was delayed after councillors claimed they had been ‘kept in the dark’.
The new two-year fixed term post of assistant director for transformation within children’s services has now been rubber stamped but several councillors registered their frustration at the way the recruitment process had been handled.
Appointment Approved Despite Concerns
The council’s chief executive, Sue Johnson apologised at the last meeting of the council in June, when the item was originally deferred, noting that consultation with party leaders could have been better.
The two-year senior appointment, which is funded through a central government, will oversee how services the council delivers to vulnerable young people and young adults will be radically reorganised by new policies. Known as the ‘Prevention Agenda’, the council said the future way of working will be to concentrate investment on preventing problems from an early age, before those issues become even more severe and costly to deal with.
Criticism from Councillors
Conservative leader Nadim Muslim said that the way the appointment had been handled led ‘uncertainty to flourish and confusion to take root in the minds of members’. He said that ‘this matter could simply have been dealt with properly from the outset’.
He added: “The way this appointment of the consultant assistant director has been handled is so difficult to comprehend. Judging by the process we have witnessed, I find it difficult to assure any resident that this was conducted in a manner that was either open or transparent. I know many members in this chamber feel disappointed. They have every reason to do so, and they are not alone. As a member of the chief officers’ appointment panel myself, I wish to place on record that I am not satisfied with the process that has been followed.”
Coun Derek Wunderley, for Reform, opposed the motion to make the appointment. He said: “Questions continue to surround the recruitment process and whether the process was fully open and competitive. What safeguards were in place to ensure transparency and fairness? Despite those questions being raised, we have not received the level of detail that would allow members to be fully satisfied that the process has been as open and transparent as it should be. Public confidence depends not only on decisions being made correctly, but on those decisions being made openly, transparently, and honestly.”
Council Leader's Response
Council leader, Labour’s Akhtar Zaman, conceded that the appointment process could have been handled better. He said: “At the last council meeting, speakers from other groups expressed concerns about the process that had been followed in leading to the recommendation for the creation of this post. I think these were fair comments, and the chief executive and director of children’s services apologized for that. It is regretful that members felt excluded from the process. We are one of the most open and transparent councils in the UK, this is underpinned by regular informal meetings of the leaders, and I apologize that this item was not on the agenda of the leaders’ meeting prior to the council meeting in June.”
The decision on the appointment was supported by a majority of councillors.
