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’.