Plans revealed for major shake-up of Wirral Council’s senior management

Sep 5 2012 by Liam Murphy, Heswall News

A MAJOR shake-up of senior management will be one of the first tasks facing Wirral Council's new chief executive.

Graham Burgess, who started as the authority's interim boss on Monday, will oversee the culling of “tiers of management” as one of his first priorities.

The plan was revealed after a special meeting of the council's ruling cabinet was scheduled for September 18. It will be followed by an employment and appointments committee which will consider a detailed but as-yet-unpublished report.

But council leader Phil Davies said the Mr Burgess was “very keen to streamline senior management” and to “effectively reduce the number of senior managers”.

This will see the current set-up of directors covering finance, adult social services, children’s services, technical services, law and HR, and regeneration reduced to three “strategic directors” directly below the chief making up the new senior management team.

Cllr Davies said: “They will be given a specific brief to have a corporate role. We want to get away from the ‘silo approach’ where you have individual directors defending their departments. We are one organisation and we want that ethos in the way we run things.”

The changes will see three new directors “overseeing all the services of the council and working across the whole organisation”, according to Cllr Davies, who said the changes will be “at worst” no more expensive than present and will hopefully lead to savings.

However it is complicated by the current suspension of four of the council’s most senior officers, which could mean initial appointments are only made on an interim basis.