International Women’s Day: It’s time to #Break The Bias

The theme of this year’s International Women’s Day is #BreakTheBias and is all about smashing stereotypes. Did you know that only a third of council Chief Executives are women? Wokingham Borough Council is led by Chief Executive, Susan Parsonage. Below we hear more about her career so far and advice for others.

MY career in local government began 24 years ago. I had previously worked for BT, but by the age of 26 I decided that I wanted a change and to start focusing on different issues.

I went to university and completed a law degree, followed by a master’s degree in law and philosophy. I had done voluntary work with a women’s refuge while writing my degree’s dissertation on domestic abuse and I was drawn to my first role in local government as it centred on running a campaign around ending violence against women and children.

I have always been a great fan of voluntary work and have an invested interest in social issues.

While working at Ealing Council I volunteered for a small social housing association in Hackney that supported young people new to London who needed low-cost housing.

This helped give me good experience and insights for one of my later roles as Director for Safer Communities and Housing. I have also been drawn to positions in the community where the work can make a real difference to people’s lives, such as community safety.

Over the years, I took on different roles, which helped me learn more about other areas of the council, including environmental health, street cleaning, recycling and environmental crime.

I knew I wanted to challenge myself and take on a Chief Executive role, so I moved to Lancaster City Council which also provided an opportunity to work on regeneration and change the council’s relationship with external partners such as businesses and the University.

After some time at Lancaster and given my passion and experience for people and safeguarding, I knew I wanted to also have a greater influence over and help shape change in Children’s and Adult’s Services in a unitary authority.

So when the opportunity for a Chief Executive role came up at Wokingham Borough Council in 2019, I was keen to go for it.

Looking at my career, I would say some of the recent proudest moments have been during our response to the pandemic – particularly as I’m really passionate about partnership working.

Working with our local voluntary and community sectors, supporting vulnerable people, standing up to Central Government on important issues, getting money out to businesses as quickly as possible, and so much more.

We have consistently sought to put our residents at the heart of every decision and been able to make made some great achievements in difficult times.

As with any job, there have been challenges along the way.

Time is always an issue, particularly in a leadership position as you are constantly being pulled in different directions and always want to ensure you’re focusing on the right areas.

Something that’s also important, particularly so in the past few years is the need for personal resilience, so I’m conscious for the need to continuously work on this.

My advice to anyone considering a career in local government is to go for it. There are so many different paths to go down and knowing that you are making a real difference to people’s lives carries you through.

If you are in a position to be able to follow your passion or do work that chimes with your beliefs, everything else will flow and in local authorities, it’s really important to make the most of the opportunities available to you when they arise.