Top £100k Kirklees Council officer to leave after nine months in shake-up

Aug 5 2010 by Barry Gibson, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

A HIGHLY-PAID director looks set to leave Kirklees Council less than a year into her new role.

Jane Scullion was appointed to the newly-created post of director of organisation development in November.

Kirklees was criticised by the Taxpayers’ Alliance and the Plain English Campaign for using jargon when advertising the role last June.

But the position – which commands a salary of between £106,000 and £119,000 – is being abolished as Kirklees reduces its number of directors from seven to four.

It also emerged yesterday that the council’s interim chief executive Paul Rogerson worked for the council for just seven days, earning £5,300.

Kirklees is in the middle of a budget-cutting programme to deal with the public spending squeeze. It will mean the council’s non-school workforce drops from 11,200 to 9,700.

As part of the changes, Ms Scullion’s role as director of organisation development will be merged with the position of finance director to create a new post of director of resources.

But top councillors have decided that the holder of the new position must be a qualified accountant – which Ms Scullion is not.

By law every council must nominate a member of staff as its “section 151 officer” with responsibility for finance.

The person must be a qualified accountant but does not necessarily have to hold the position of director of finance.

Kirklees Unison branch secretary Paul Holmes was an observer at the meeting where the decision was made.

Yesterday he said: “I don’t understand this. There are plenty of people in the council both above and below Jane Scullion who could hold the section 151 role.”

New chief executive Adrian Lythgo, who was an associate partner at top accountancy firm KPMG for eight years, held the section 151 responsibility when he served as finance director.

Mr Holmes believes there’s no reason he can’t go on as the council’s designated qualified accountant.

He said: “If Adrian Lythgo isn’t qualified to give advice on accountancy then who is? But councillors have decided that the chief executive can’t be the designated accountant.”

On Friday the cross-party Personnel Committee decided on the changes to director posts. The group agreed to a suggestion from council leader Clr Mehboob Khan that the new director of resources must be a qualified accountant.

The move means that a new director must be recruited immediately from outside the council.