Two councils in West Suffolk this week formally approved a new shared Corporate Leadership Team.
Forest Heath District Council (on 2 August) and St Edmundsbury Borough Council (on 1 August) approved a structure that will see a team of one Chief Executive, two directors and nine heads of service working across West Suffolk to support two councils. The new structure sees a cut of two directors and five heads of service.
The two councils started working together in 2002 on recycling and more recently have begun to join up other services. Shared senior management is the next step in the process of having one West Suffolk staff structure.
At last night's meeting, Forest Heath District Council Leader, Cllr James Waters, said: "Between us our councils need to save £2.5 million from our budgets. This shared structure is aboutmaking every minute count and every penny count."
At the previous night's meeting, St Edmundsbury Borough Council Leader, Cllr John Griffiths, said: "This is another milestone on our shared services journey. It will not always be an easy journey for staff or councillors, but it is one we need to make so we can do our best for the people we serve in West Suffolk."
The two directors' posts are significantly different to those of the current corporate or strategic directors at the two councils. They will not be responsible for managing individuals or discrete services but will work across all the services, bringing people together and making the right connections internally and externally to make the best use of individuals, depending on the project or activity.
Chief Executive Ian Gallin said: "Having directors managing heads of service who then manage service managers is simply too bureaucratic. This will be a Corporate Leadership Team who will not be there to check staff are doing their jobs, but to empower and enable them to do their jobs."
There are no cost or savings identified yet from the management team restructure as they will not be known until the new team is in place, which is due by 1 October 2012.
