‘We have a council in disarray – and no one is telling us anything, it’s a farce’ Fury as councillors kept in dark over chief’s departure
BIRMINGHAM’S councillors have been gagged from commenting on the “farce” enveloping Britain’s largest local authority after the shock departure of its chief executive Mark Rogers.
With Mr Rogers locked in a talks with the council over the terms of his exit, the council’s chief lawyer has written to councillors warning them against social media posts and public statements on the issue.
His departure leaves the council with only one senior manager in a permanent post. Others are interim, acting, seeing out notice or on the brink of retirement.
And it has generated a growing feeling among council insiders that, far from putting off direct Government intervention, the chief ’s departure and ensuing chaos has only hastened it.
This week Labour group bosses are believed to have told Moseley and Kings Heath councillor Claire Spencer to delete a blog post in which she speculated about Government interference in the running of the council.
The instruction comes as the Labour leadership is under pressure from opposition Tories to explain the sudden departure of its £180,000-a-year chief executive just days before it sets its annual budget. Neither staff nor councillors have been briefed on the situation or what happens next.
A formal petition signed by Conservative, Liberal Democrat, Labour and independent councillors, has been handed to the Lord Mayor urging him to call an emergency meeting of the full council and summon Labour leader John Clancy.
Lord Mayor Carl Rice required to fully consider request.
Meanwhile Cllr Clancy is believed to be on holiday in Wales and the message coming from senior Labour group sources is that it was “business as usual”.
The sources defended the gag, pointing out the council is in sensitive legal negotiations with Mr Rogers.
It is widely rumoured Mr Rogers was asked to go to appease the Birmingham Independent Improvement Panel, the Government appointed watchdog which has been monitoring the council since the 2014 Kerslake report exposed deep seated problems.
Opposition Conservative shadow cabinet member Matt Bennett (Harborne), who raised the petition, said: “We have a council in disarray and no one is telling is the us anything. Then we get this email warning us not to discuss it – how can we when we haven’t been told what is going. It’s a farce.
“The leader is on holiday and has not responded to our emails, we have no chief executive, we need to know what happens next, how we are going to get through this.
“At a time when we need Cllr Clancy to show some leadership he is away and all we have is a leadership vacuum.
“He has completely abdicated all responsibility for this mess.”
He said that the email from legal officer Kate Charlton warned them against making remarks which are ‘adverse or derogatory’ to councillors or council staff.
“We are politicians, this is what we should be doing,” he added.
Questions are also being raised around the council’s constitution under which the right to hire and fire the chief executive lies with the full council.
This could include the right to make him serve a notice period.
A Labour councillor, who asked not to be named, said: “We removed the council leader to appease the panel and Gov- ernment, now it seems the chief executive has gone the same way.
“And now we have no what happens next.
“Who is going to take this job now, it’s a poisoned chalice. Perhaps we should just hand it over to the Government and let them get on with it.”
There is serious concern over one of Mr Rogers’ key projects - the transformation of the council’s workforce designed to remove hundreds, possibly thousands, of staff in a bid to save £40 million a year from the wage bill by the end of 2019.
A replacement will not only take time to find but may have their own ideas meaning those budget savings will have to be found elsewhere.
Graeme McDonald, of the council chief executives’ professional body, SOLACE, said: “Rumours of external involvement are worrying, would be a serious erosion of local accountability and expose the flaws in centralised improvement regimes.
“Local communities need their councils to recruit, retain and develop the best managers and politicians. I know Mark is among the very best and was devoted to pursuing positive change in the city. Speculation, such as what we’ve seen in recent days, only makes hat change more difficult.” idea