Tameside Council chief executive quits

TAMESIDE Council’s chief executive Sandra Stewart has resigned.

Speculation surrounding her future has been rife since a withering report into the authority’s children’s services department and comments at a subsequent scrutiny panel.

Now she has stepped down from the £186,692-a-year role – after claims of a ‘toxic’ and ‘bullying’ culture were made – to become chief executive of the Greater Manchester Pension Fund.

She was absent from the meeting of the full council on Tuesday, October 8.

And behind closed doors, with the press and public excluded, details of her resignation and its ramifications are thought to have been discussed – in the interim, director of resources Ashley Hughes is likely to step up to the role.

No-one would comment when asked by The Correspondent as they left Droylsden’s Guardsman Tony Downes House.

But in a statement, she said: “The leader and I have agreed that I will become the chief executive of the £32 billion Greater Manchester Pension Fund to deal with the national agenda that Government is currently setting.

“And we will search for a new chief executive to lead the council through the next phase of improvement.

“I have been proud to work for Tameside for 30 years and have put my heart and soul into delivering the best outcomes for the borough.

“The council will be starting the permanent recruitment process over the coming weeks and in the meantime, to enable me to focus on the priorities at the Pension Fund, interim arrangements will be put in place to ensure we have a continuous chief executive and place-based lead for Tameside.

“I am incredibly proud of all the work you all do day in and day out to make the borough a better place where everyone can achieve their hopes and ambitions.”

Political leader, Cllr Gerald Cooney, has changed the children’s services scrutiny panel, with Cllr Brenda Warrington coming in as chair.

Government-appointed commissioner Andy Couldrick produced a damning report into the department, sparking a new anonymous staff survey being sent out.

He said: “Many staff and partners have frequently used similar words to describe the culture, including ‘fear’, ‘bullying’, ‘intimidating’, ‘toxic’. There is nervousness to speak out.

“A common complaint from staff and frontline managers has been that their direction is constantly changing.

“Staff describe feeling, at times, bewildered and criticised for their practice when leaders have consistently failed to create and sustain a way of working that everyone can understand, endorse and operationalise.

“Staff describe leaders in the past as distant, remote and invisible. They describe changes in leadership and management as happening without explanation.

“Leaders did not know or understand the weakness of their services to children and families. Staff also describe a ‘brutal’ regime, where senior leaders have been exited from the organisation as a rapid response to an adverse review or inspection.

“This has created a strong sense of unease, uncertainty and ‘frozen watchfulness’ in the workforce.”

However, Sandra Stewart contended with: “I’ve had feedback from staff already that they don’t agree there’s a toxic working environment.

“That’s reflected in our employee survey, which we had last year, where 74 per cent of employees said they were satisfied with their job.

“So, we’re doing another survey because if that’s what the commissioner’s heard, we still have to tackle that.

“He doesn’t always set out his evidence and not everybody agrees with that, or where it’s from.

“We don’t really know whether he spoke to just children’s services staff, that’s what I mean about not being clear on the evidential basis. It doesn’t say.”

In comments that are thought to have attracted most criticism, she also took aim at how the scrutiny panel works.

She added: “Responding to a question from Cllr Jacqueline Owen of ‘What can we do?’, she said: “Some of the things I’ve come across in the report is there is a real view that Tameside is very critical but not necessarily supportive or challenging.

“It’s about how do you recognise the good work while at the same time asking those questions in a supportive way as to why is that area not as good and what does that mean?

“It might be we need to put more resources into something, rather than expecting people to just work harder or flog themselves on something.

“What would be really good as a scrutiny panel is how we can ensure you’re fully briefed, so you’re able to hold people to challenge.

“If it was the bins, we’d be all over it, whereas this is one of those areas where it can be quite complex at times and we’ve not always necessarily – and I include myself in that – been so involved and understanding of it.

“So that’s what we’ve got to do. Rather than being critical, we need to be supportive and challenging.

“That’s what you see in the report – we’re not always challenging enough about some performance or understanding of it, why it’s not good and what we can do to improve it.”