Ernie Clark. Hilperton Division, Wiltshire Council.

This sudden departure surely raises a few questions.

Martin Donovan, Service Director for Finance and Procurement and Section 151 Officer, will be leaving the council at the end of July.

Whilst we will never know the reason(s) behind his departure, it might be that he has decided that the job is impossible as currently structured.

The following report will be discussed at WC Cabinet next week – annoyingly they seem to have wasted all of the resources from merging the councils (at least £4 million and highly likely some more) and spent the redundancy reserves on a few select people (no doubt with eyewatering pension costs) so now WC seems to have nowhere to go but with cuts to services.

WC will now also need a very good (and expensive) accountant to implement the government savings – but the current structure (probably unique to Wiltshire Council) places the Finance Director one position removed from Chief Executive, and therefore he/she loses the power to persuade the people who count that they need to save money.

This position holds statutory responsibility so most accountants that can function at this level won’t consider applying because it is a level removed from the board (reducing influence) and, because of this, carries a lower salary than they would expect.

The history of finance directors at WCC and WC is 3 (4 when they appoint the new one) in 4-5 years – not a good, but expensive, track record.

Excerpts from the report to Cabinet:-

'Across the Council redundancy costs are forecast of £0.750 million arising from the formation of Department of Neighbourhood and Planning and continuous transition of services since 'one council'. These pressures will have to be absorbed by the council as the transition fund was fully utilised in 2009-10.

Significant service financial pressures, in addition to central government grant reductions, have already been identified across departments in year amounting to over £10 million. Actions to manage these pressures are in place. Ways of managing the remaining £2.3 million department pressures are being developed. Failure to deliver these actions will result in an overspend for the Council.'

I don't think we need to guess too much what the 'ways of managing' will involve!!