Top council post

goes job share....

....has leisure deal

gone pear shaped?

Merger is in the air as South Holland and East Lindsey District Councils meet today to agree the business strategy for their shared services company – Compass Point Business Services (East Coast) - and its trading arm.
By merging customer services, revenues and benefits, ICT, human resources and finance, the two authorities expect to save more than £30 million over the next 10 years.
Not only that, but by generating new business – which we assume means taking on work for other local authorities – the councils expect to earn as well as save money.
Regular readers of Boston Eye may remember that Boston Borough Council could have had a seat at this financial feast as well – but backed out when it realised that its financial position was so shaky that it would have to borrow money to be a player.
Now, if Boston wants to join the savers’ club it will have to pay – just like everyone else.
And yet, bizarrely, the Borough will play a role in all of this - albeit an extremely peripheral one.
When Compass Point was created, one of South Holland’s strategic directors was temporarily appointed as the company’s Section 151 Officer – its financial supremo.
And among the staff transferred to the new company was East Lindsey’s Section 151 officer – which left ELDC without a post holder.
Now it emerges that after discussions with Boston Chief Executive Richard Harbord, Boston’s recently appointed Director of Resources and Section 151 officer will step into the breach - working for each authority for two and a half days a week with the salary shared 50-50.
Readers may recall that the Boston job was advertised at a stonking £87,500 a year, and filled almost on the quiet, with no formal announcement.
While the reported salary was disputed, it appears that East Lindsey’s half of the bill equates to a salary cost of £58,000 per annum (including on costs) which makes the total an even stonkinger £116,000.
Whilst we don’t understand how all these things work, we wonder at the wisdom of appointing someone earlier this year when it must have been clear then that the job took only two-and-a-half days a week to do, rather than the five days that the salary was offered for.
Meanwhile, South Holland District Council is not letting the grass grow under its feet. A further report following the Chief Executive job sharing arrangement with neighbouring Breckland Council earlier in the year puts forward proposals for a joint shared management structure between the two authorities which will deliver savings of a further £1 million a year.
As the grass stays neat and tidy in the south of the county, Boston, meanwhile, disappears ever deeper into the woods.
This morning’s agenda of Boston’s Cabinet has fallen victim to the famous disappearing disease - which ranges from whole committees vanishing from agendas to individual reports.
Today’s casualty is a report on Leisure Services by the council’s top two officers. One minute it was “not yet available” then it was “withdrawn.”

Now you see it - now you don't - two views of Boston Borough Council's website just hours apart

We’ve no idea what the report might have contained, but we worry that it suggests that the Borough’s deal to privatise the running of the Princess Royal Sports Arena and Geoff Moulder Leisure Centre might just have gone pear shaped. If that is the case, rest assured that we, the taxpayers will be the last to know.

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