Senior Management Restructure

The council is consulting on a major re-organisation of its senior management structure. When we set our budget for this year we said we were going to look at our management costs and structure. We have to. By 2013 we will have seen a 47.4% cut in government funding for the council compared to 2010.


We lost 40 council posts this year. Our highways responsibilities have been taken back by the County Council. So we need to bring the size of our senior management team into line with the reduced size of our total staffing.

Councils across the country are looking at different ways of doing things. Some councils share their chief executive or the whole senior management team with another council. In Lincolnshire three councils are looking to share one chief executive. In Essex one of the district councils shares a chief executive with the county council. A few councils have decided to dispense with the role of chief executive and to have a small collective leadership team.

We have looked at all these ideas to see what might work here. But we also asked the council staff what they thought. We set up a Staff Commission made up of members of staff below the senior management level and from different parts of the council.

So we started with a bottom-up approach to this restructuring. The Commission came up with ideas for how the council could work. They particularly stressed the benefits of delegating more responsibility down to staff at different levels and for more collaborative working across directorates and service divisions.

At the moment in Hastings Borough Council there’s one chief executive, three directors and 11 heads of service. After a lot of thought and discussion with everyone involved I am recommending a management structure with no chief executive, three directors and seven heads of service. Over time this could bring a saving of around £400,000 a year.

We are now consulting on these suggestions with the people affected until the end of the month and will take a final decision by mid-November. This timescale will then help us with preparing next year’s budget.

Going through a restructuring process is never an easy task. All our current senior officers are highly professional and very dedicated to their jobs and to the future of the town. They have all played a significant part in the progress we have made over the last few years and deserve all our thanks.

But in this very difficult financial climate we are being forced to make tough decisions and I know once a new structure is in place everyone will work hard to make sure it succeeds.

Decent homes for all

With Cllr Jay Kramer outside one of the empty homes subject to a CPO

Sometimes even I will admit council committee meetings could be more interesting! Some reports we discuss are necessary but perhaps not action-packed. Not so the October cabinet meeting – it was one proactive decision after another, each of which will make a real difference to people in the town.

At the annual council meeting back in May I announced we were developing a housing action plan – the October cabinet meeting approved the details. It involves the council getting stuck in to enforcing better housing conditions in privately rented properties, especially houses in multiple occupation (HMOs).And it involves innovative ways of bringing in money for housing renewal now that the government grants w e used to get have been stopped.

The town has a very high proportion of bedsit/flats, or houses in multiple occupation - four times the national average.

Living conditions in them are often well below standard, so the action plan includes an additional licensing scheme to help tackle these problems and provide greater protection for tenants. It will mean all HMOs will have to be licensed and they will have to meet standards set by the council for housing conditions and for management of the property.

The cabinet meeting confirmed our partnership with Local Space housing association, who are looking to invest £3.5m in Central St Leonards buying up some of the poor quality HMOs and improving and renovating them.

It also agreed to compulsorily purchase 14 long-term empty properties – double the number we successfully targeted back in December. Of the ones we agreed to take over then nearly all are being brought back into positive use by the owners – the compulsory purchase threat clearly concentrated the mind.

We also decided to compulsorily purchase the Malvern pub which has been a blot on the area for too long. Amicus Horizon housing association are looking to redevelop the parade of shops and flats next door so demolishing the pub and landscaping the site could transform the appearance of that corner of Broomgrove estate.

Then the cabinet approved a scheme where the council will act as guarantor for deposits for first-time buyers. Currently they are being asked to stomp up 25% of the mortgage as a deposit. We will act as guarantor for 20% so the buyer will get a 95% mortgage on the same terms as a 75% one. We are looking to support perhaps 50 buyers and that may mean freeing up rented accommodation for others.

All in all that was a pretty busy night.