Having blogged a couple of weeks back about the extraordinary spending priorities being displayed by the leaders of Suffolk County Council, I wasn’t unduly surprised to find another example hitting national news via the Daily Mail.
Apparently both our Chief Executive and our Council Leader have been benefiting from extraordinarily expensive “coaching for change” (article here) According to a Freedom of Information request the Chief Executive has had 23 sessions from ex-Chemical Engineer turned senior executive coach Sol Davidson each one of which cost the Suffolk taxpayer £525 plus VAT.
We do not (yet) have figures for the amount Suffolk taxpayers have spent on Jeremy Pembroke.
I’d like to mention here our Woodbridge lollipop man, Terry King. Mr King has been paid £35 a week by Suffolk County Council for his valued and life-saving services. Now Suffolk says his services are too expensive. £12,075 would pay for him to continue protecting children in Woodbridge for nearly seven years.
I will not offend your intelligence by pointing out what other equally valuable uses Suffolk residents could put this sum of money to.
The county council line is dismissive. Spending £12,000 on personal coaching is ” in line with training normally provided to senior officers” they say – which suggests that SCC spending priorities are even more skew-whiff than anyone has realised.
I know nothing about Mr Davidson, beyond what is available via Google which is principally profile pages. The more recent profiles read:
He now specialises in coaching leaders and their teams in building strategic and operational capacity in the face of increasingly uncertain and unpredictable circumstance
What is interesting for the residents of Suffolk is that the uncertain and unpredictable circumstances we face are seemingly created by the very people he coached!
What’s all that about?
Update: It was reported in the EADT March 5th, that the total amount paid to Mr Davidson by SCC for his coaching was £27,825 for 53 sessions of between one hour and ninety minutes each. This was to coach the Chief Executive, Andrea Hill, and the corporate management board in ‘teambuilding and working styles’.
I think we do need to take a long hard look at our councils and start making the cuts at the TOP!! It seems to me that top management and middle management waste the most – time for a cull!! However it seems they are culling the workers…………not a good move!!
When people make these sort of daft decisions, and imagine that they won’t attract criticism, you know that they’re not in touch with the people they’re supposed to serve. I’d suggest a new form of training for Ms Hill, Mr Pembroke, and all. It wouldn’t cost much, in fact it probably wouldn’t cost more than a few bus fares. It’s called a reality check. Spend at least a day at a time with some of the people who work for the county and some of the people who need the county’s services, including disabled and older people. Remove cell phones and all other gadgets before you start. Expect them to serve meals, wash dishes, clean toilets, stop traffic, sweep floors, shadow social work and care staff, ride a bike to and from some appointments, etc. No excuses. Let them see how profoundly crass and insensitive it is for any of them to claim expenses for unnecessary “consultants” who cultivate their own highly lucrative mystique to exploit their clients’ gullibility. I could tell you lots of stories about “consultants”, and how they’ve shafted the various publicly-funded bodies who’ve employed them. It’s all a con.
Let her a lollipop lady for a week… By the time she has jumped out of her skin a few times and gasped at the approach of braking cars (or not ) reality will most definitely be achieved. The lollipop men/women may even get a reprieve….
And by the way she will still have time to fit in her day job!