On 25th Jan 2018, Scrutiny hosted an Ask the Leader session, where Cllr Matthew Barber took on all comers. I had a question for him about the impact of his Cabinet’s decisions to cut back on senior staff.

I asked him, “Last year the external auditors found that Council decision makers had let too many managers leave the council without replacement, to the extent that we didn’t have enough people left to do the required work of council. I’ve personally heard of a few service areas that had delays in delivering their planned work for the last two years or so due to lack of resources. For example, Environmental Health team was mentioned in full council, and the Communications team have delayed their Communications Strategy work. Which other service areas are suffering in performance due to lack of resources? What’s being done to remedy this situation?”

Cllr Barber replied that the question related to two separate issues, capacity at senior management level and financial resources. With regard to the former, it was recognised some time ago that there was a lack of capacity at senior management level. Regrettably, the required management restructure had been delayed for reasons that councillors were aware but was now in progress and would result in an increased number of heads of service. With regard to the latter, the council continued to perform well given its limited resources and was allocating increased funding for additional posts.

Seems to me he didn’t really answer my questions. He dodged the issue that he was responsible for the lack of senior managers. Now, with the value of hindsight, we realise he was preparing to step down from his role as Leader of the Council, to pursue new opportunities. He left in May 2018.