Purdah Options

[Simon Kirby]

Story here.

"The council has been awarded a £5.07m grant from the Department for Transport on the basis that it agreed to fund the remaining 30 per cent – or £2.17m."

As I understand it our government, national and local, are supposed to respect this period of purdah and not publish this kind of news. If this really is WBC putting this news out there then it really is very poor form.

[Exhausted]

The other anomaly with the Town Council is that they appoint a Chief Executive whereas the Parish councils employ a Clerk to the Council.

[Simon Kirby]

The other anomaly with the Town Council is that they appoint a Chief Executive whereas the Parish councils employ a Clerk to the Council.

No, it's just a title, and parish councils could, if they chose, call their senior administrator a "Chief Executive", a "parish clerk", or indeed anything else they wanted, it's just that parish councils tend to be a bit more modest and "parish clerk" is the traditional title for a perfectly respectable role. There are plenty of town councils who still call the senior administrator the "Town Clerk" - Thame Town Council for example have just appointed the former NTC Chief Executive as their "Town Clerk".

I don't know where the fashion for calling the senior administrator a "Chief Executive" came from, but it's a singularly inappropriate title as the primary role of the town clerk is to implement decisions of the council, and it is the council collectively (that is, the elected councillors together) which makes the decisions. The town clerk, or any other officer for that matter, can receive delegated authority to make decisions within a prescribed limit (and the statutory name for that officer is then "proper officer" for that specific delegated authority), but the town clerk is not an executive role.

I've never liked the title "Chief Executive" because it confuses the roles.

[Andy Capp]

No, it's just a title, and parish councils could, if they chose, call their senior administrator a "Chief Executive", a "parish clerk", or indeed anything else they wanted, it's just that parish councils tend to be a bit more modest and "parish clerk" is the traditional title for a perfectly respectable role. There are plenty of town councils who still call the senior administrator the "Town Clerk" - Thame Town Council for example have just appointed the former NTC Chief Executive as their "Town Clerk".

I don't know where the fashion for calling the senior administrator a "Chief Executive" came from, but it's a singularly inappropriate title as the primary role of the town clerk is to implement decisions of the council, and it is the council collectively (that is, the elected councillors together) which makes the decisions. The town clerk, or any other officer for that matter, can receive delegated authority to make decisions within a prescribed limit (and the statutory name for that officer is then "proper officer" for that specific delegated authority), but the town clerk is not an executive role.

I've never liked the title "Chief Executive" because it confuses the roles.

A CEO is appointed by a board to 'execute' the wishes of the board. I see the councillors as the board; however, a CEO normally has decision making power. Perhaps this might explain some of the apparent faux pas in recent past?