Council to hire new £130k directors as cuts loom

A council facing a £10m budget gap is offering to pay more than £130,000 a year each to two new directors.

In an email seen by the BBC, Coventry City Council's chief executive, Julie Nugent, told staff the new director roles were "essential for us to get that tighter grip on corporate performance and spend".

She said the jobs, which focus on communications and cutting spending, were being funded by the departure of previous members of the leadership team.

Opposition councillors said tax-paying residents might reasonably ask if funding two new director roles was the best use of money.

To make savings in its last budget, the Labour-run council hiked council tax, switched off street lights overnight and started charging for garden waste collection.

In the email, Ms Nugent highlighted the council’s financial challenges in stark terms, telling staff "we have to address this".

She said recruiting two new directors "might seem counter-intuitive given the financial context, but these roles are essential to our long-term efficiency and corporate control".

“Importantly, they will not place any additional pressure on our budgets as they are funded through the departure of previous members of the leadership team," she said.

The leadership team was "exploring wider actions to address our challenging budget position”, she added, and asked staff to consider “everyday spend across all areas".

“Even the smallest saving will contribute to the bottom line," she said.

Gary Ridley, the Conservative opposition leader in Coventry, said the new director roles would not necessarily solve old problems.

"The people in this city being asked to put up with more service cuts mights reasonably ask if this is executive extravagance," he said.

"What we need is a practical way forward that saves money while protecting services and investing in communities, and not luxury leadership."

Richard Brown, the Labour councillor in charge of finance in the city, said the changes to the leadership team would be "cost neutral".

The new director roles would strengthen the council's value for money and improve communications so residents understood what the council was doing, he said.

Job adverts for the new roles show the salary paid for both could be between £121,541 and £131,522.

In comparison, the prime minister earns £166,786 a year, and only the most senior officials working with the UK government receive salaries above £130,000 a year.

Coventry City Council’s latest accounts show all of the senior officers listed were paid six-figure salaries in 2022/23.

The council’s deputy chief executive Gail Quinton - who left her role in 2021 - received a total pay package of £648,294 for 2021/22.

The council said the post was scrapped to "create a smaller senior management structure that generated a significant saving".

No redundancy payment was made and £454,069 of the cost for loss of office enabled Ms Quinton to access her pension early, the council said.

The council has withdrawn funding from some organisations, including an annual £325,000 grant to Coventry Independent Advice Service (CIAS), a charity which helps people with benefits claims and debt problems.

Chief executive Alan Markey said the charity had halted its face-to-face service after losing the grant, which made up about 80% of its funding.

"We’re unfortunately going through a redundancy process and if we don’t get more funding we’re going to face closure next year," he said.

Mr Markey said there’s set to be a £400,000 net loss of council funding to advice services in Coventry this year.

The council said it wanted to be more efficient in its funding of advice services and has awarded grants to two other charities.