It’s good to know that in these times of austerity that Tower Hamlets council still feels able to create new well paid, political-orietented jobs.
It is currently advertising internally for a new “Head of Mayor’s Office” to help Lutfur Rahman analyse policy decisions and spread his message to his taxpayers. The salary is about £60,000, which is, I have to say, relatively low compared with some of the semi-sinecures funded by Tower Hamlets council. For example, the new person will have to deal with Takki Sulaiman, the £100,000 a year “head of communications”. [Note to watching lawyers: Takki’s job isn’t really a sinecure; he puts in a lot of hours blocking queries from members of the press.]
Here’s the job description for the new job:
Head of Mayor’s Office
£57,111 – £59,982
Accountable to: Mayor Responsible to: Service Head, Democratic Services (with an additional, non-managerial reporting line to the Service Head, Strategy and Performance.)
Position interacts with: Mayor, Deputy Mayor and Cabinet Members, Mayoral Advisors, Chief Executive, Strategy and Performance Service Head and team, Corporate Directors and senior officers, all Elected Members, Members of Parliament and Central Government, Greater London Authority, Tower Hamlets Partnership, PCT and Partner Organisations, local residents and community groups.
Responsible for: Executive Assistant to the Mayor; Mayor’s Personal Assistant; Executive Support Officer (Deputy Mayor); Mayor’s Political Adviser; Senior Administrative Officer.
Purpose of the job:
To support and develop the priorities of the Elected Mayor in all areas, and work in conjunction with the Chief Executive, Council Directorates and the Strategy and Performance Team to achieve the Mayor’s programme. In particular:
To advise and support the Mayor in the review and development of his priorities and initiatives so that these contribute to achieving the vision of the Mayor resulting in improved quality of life outcomes for local people.
To provide senior executive support to the Mayor and to work with CMT and the Strategy and Performance Service to ensure the integration of the Mayor’s priorities into policy, strategic planning and service delivery at all levels across the Council and the Tower Hamlets Partnership.
To liaise with the Head of Communications to promote the Mayor’s public agenda locally, regionally and nationally to stakeholders including the public, Members, Council officers, Partner organisations, Central and Regional Government.
To represent the Mayor’s Office with internal and external stakeholders.
To manage the staff and resources allocated to the Mayor’s Office
Main duties and responsibilities:
To ensure that the Mayor’s priorities are clearly articulated and in liaison with the Service Head, Strategy and Performance to be responsible for the integration of those priorities within the community planning process.
To contribute to the work of the Mayor’s Advisory Board to enable it to lead and shape Council policy direction and to ensure the effective incorporation of the Mayor’s policy and emerging initiatives into strategic planning and delivery of Council services
To work with the Strategy and Performance Service as necessary to provide advice, as requested, to the Mayor on the implications of new government policy and strategy and emerging best practice of relevance to the Mayor’s priorities.
In conjunction with the Service Head, Strategy and Performance, to commission research and information activities to support the Mayor’s priorities.
To facilitate effective communications with key stakeholders, in Central and Local Government, the community and the voluntary and business sectors, as required to deliver the main job purpose.
To manage the Mayor’s Office staff and resources within the post’s remit, ensuring that the Mayor and Deputy Mayor receive appropriate support and that staff have clear objectives and development plans linked to strategic and corporate priorities.
In liaison with the Democratic Services team, to co-ordinate responses to all Council questions submitted to the Mayor and where necessary allocate questions/responses to the relevant Cabinet Members.
CORPORATE DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES FOR ALL SENIOR MANAGERS
To work actively with all Cabinet Members, Corporate Directors and the Chief Executive to ensure services are integrated at the point of delivery.
To ensure the establishment of a culture of quality and equality across the Council.
To participate in the development of the Community and Strategic Plans ensuring they reflect the Mayor’s priorities and are embedded both in the operational and strategic framework of the Council.
To support organisational change ensuring appropriate systems of performance and development, communications, quality measures, monitoring and review are in place.
To work as part of multi-disciplinary teams to enable the breaking down of directorate barriers and encourage the concept of both internal and external partnership working.
To work with key stakeholders, local residents and the third sector in improving service delivery and promoting creative and innovative ways of tackling local problems, ensuring services are user focused and developed to meet the needs of our ethnically diverse community.
To promote a positive image of Tower Hamlets and represent the Council at local and national level, attending and presenting at such conferences, seminars and working parties as may be required.
To provide professional advice to councillors and other officers on areas of service delivery within the service’s span of control.
To take active steps to achieve the Council’s objective of a ‘Workforce to Reflect the Community’.
To comply with legal requirements, the Council’s Standing Orders and Financial Regulations and to advise the Chief Executive, elected Members and Committees as appropriate.
To comply with and support the delivery of the Council’s Equal Opportunities Policy and lead its development and promotion across the Council, including opposing, and where possible eradicating, all forms of discrimination as an employer and service provider.
To lead on the development of both borough and Council-wide projects and initiatives, as and when required.
As directed, to undertake such additional duties and responsibilities that may arise from time to time.
You will be required to undertake such reasonable hours of work as are necessary to fully perform the duties of the post. You can expect to work out of hours according to the business need.
Person Specification for the Post of Head of Mayor’s Office
Knowledge
Good understanding of the functions of local government.
Good understanding of the new governance arrangements and the respect roles of executive and non-executive members and of officers.
Knowledge of the key issues facing local government including understanding of local government and national policies.
Knowledge and awareness of the issues involved when working within a multi-racial community.
Knowledge of a local authority’s internal management arrangements including budgetary processes.
Good knowledge of the Mayoral system of governance and the issues facing an elected Mayor in Tower Hamlets.
Qualifications & Experience
A degree or professional qualification or equivalent experience.
Experience of working in a party-political/local government environment.
Experience of working at a high level within an organisation.
Managerial experience in a fast paced pressurised office environment.
Experience of working with the media.
Experience of local government.
I wonder who’ll get it.
Trial by Jeory 
Not entirely sure “pork barreling” is an entirely appropriate term in Tower Hamlets.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pork_barrel
Perhaps there is a Bengali equivalent, “a shake of the mango tree” perhaps.
£60k is very low indeed for the job. Entirely reasonable to advertise such a job – Lutfur will need a right-hand man (or woman, although somehow I doubt that will happen).
The key skill is the last one on the essential list “Good knowledge of…the issues facing an elected Mayor in Tower Hamlets”.
ie must be able to work in a semi-poisonous political atmosphere in which all the opposition parties have been alienated by the campaigning done by the Mayor to get the post and are now determined not to work with him. Must be able to work amongst constant evidence coming to light of fraud and corruption. Must be able to handle the (almost weekly) political problems arising in Spitalfields. Must be able to handle and rebut constant allegations of close links between Islamic fundamentalist organisations and the Mayor and/or Tower Hamlets Council.
Pity – it’s a job I’d be interested in but not for Lutfur. And not in the current climate at the council.
I notice there’s no mention of the words “value for money” or “cost effective”. Which is odd considering the current context of operations for local government in general.
So now we know where the Mayor’s priorities really lie!
At what point does this new bod get appraised of the severe financial constraints on the council’s activities in the next few years?
I should imagine policy wonks without practical experience of budget management or real life will be lining up to apply!
Any council leader needs someone to manage their office, act as liaison point with senior officers and external bodies (such as other councils), draft speeches and briefings, provide advice, act as gatekeeper etc etc.
Ted says at the start of this post that the job is currently being advertised internally so no doubt anyone who currently works for the Council, has the necessary skills, and is about to lose their current job will apply. In that way it’s cost-effective as if somebody is appointed internally then it’s redeployment.
I don’t know if it’s being advertised externally as well.
Aha – thanks! I completely missed the internal advert comment!
Obviously if it does go to external advert and somebody is appointed from outside then it turns into a slightly different matter about whether there really wasn’t anybody at the Council who was equipped to do the job.
But as somebody else has posted below, many/most councils have put a freeze on external recruitment except for specialist or essential posts and even these will need special scrutiny and approval from senior officers (including Finance) before advertising or recruiting.
Why is the job internally advertised when nearly 24,000 people voted for Mayor Rahman? May be he wants to appoint someone who has experience of siphoning off funds like they did to Rix Mix (Fix £29)?! Let’s look at the finance chiefs’ CVs! Have they already ‘fixed’ someone like Labour did in the Spitalfields by-election?!
I should imagine there’s a little matter of the number of posts which need to be lost due to cuts……plus I’m guessing there’s a general ban on recruiting new people to the Council due to the need to keep posts vacant to save money.
The general rule in most counils is that all those being made redundant have a prior call on any new jobs being advertised. You can generally only advertise externally if there is nobody internally who satisfies the skill requirements.
Perfectly legitimate job, appropriate level of pay for the role, and completely correct to advertise it internally first. Rather uniformed comments by Ted, frankly.
I suggest Kevin Colins should do it because the executive Mayor should do the chief executive’s job. Why should there be two ‘chief’ executives in One Tower Hamlets?! Hurts???
@Fighting4EdMiliband Spelling again! Try Kevan Collins if you want to impress him!
Have you ever heard of the Chairman of the Company and the Chief Executive – that’s the same as the Executive Mayor and the CEO in a local authority.
Perhaps you’ve not heard about why it’s generally a jolly good idea that these people should not be the same person?
Try reading the FRC’s Corporate Governance Code (pdf file) which is standard good practice for how business in general is conducted in this country.
The Second Principle in the Leadership section states the following
There should be a clear division of responsibilities at the head of the company between the running of the board and the executive responsibility for the running of the company’s business. No one individual should have unfettered powers of decision.
Or let the mayor head his own office by topping up his salary with the £10,000 he was forced to sacrifice so that it would pay for the newly elected councillor of Spitalfields from December 17! Just think you’d save £50,000 a year
Tower Hamlets council staff warned of job cuts – East London Advertiser online
Julia Gregory, Senior reporter
Wednesday, 24 November, 2010 16:12 PM
Council workers in Tower Hamlets are being warned to brace themselves for job cuts:
Tower Hamlets chief executive Kevan Collins wrote to all council employees today about cuts explaining they are needed to cope “with the unpredecented financial challenge” facing the country.
The council is believed to be looking at cutting 500 jobs as it saves £70 million from its budget.
Mr Collins has said that around 500 jobs will need to be axed in 2011/2012 and he has asked managers to draw up restructuring plans.
Conservative leader on the council Peter Golds: “I find it absolutely ridiculous that at a time staff are hearing this job adverts are going out for the head of the mayor’s office at between £57,000 and £59,000.”
The mayor mustn’t recruit anyone at all, at present.
Like I said in a comment on another post – the only issue of real importance right now is balancing the revenue budget for next year within the context of £70 million LESS in the coffers.
There are a lot of people living in Tower Hamlets and working for the Council who are going to be without a job in the New Year.
Note that it’s the CEO who is making the unpalatable announcements – as opposed to the Executive Mayor who glibly said he would “fight the cuts”. Words are easy – delivering budgets isn’t.
How exactly does he propose to do that and still deliver a balanced budget I wonder?
[BTW – Unless they’ve got some very big service cuts coming re non-pay costs, by my reckoning the job losses are going to be much bigger than 500 jobs. That is unless they are decimating the top structure and the best paid jobs.
Of course other London Boroughs have already determined that the only way to have a significant impact on back office costs – as opposed to front-line services – is to merge functions across boroughs. Who would want to work with Tower Hamlets though?]
Just read the article which is here
The salient line is
“He said the staff budget has to be cut by 23 per cent to save £29 million.”
Divide £29million by 500 and you get a gross staff cost of £58,000 (which includes the employers costs of employment as well the gross salary paid to the member of staff).
Which means it’s pretty certain that they’re not looking at the lower paid front-line staff delivering direct services for the pay savings.
You can’t lose oncosts associated with the employment of a person as fast as you can make somebody redudant. However those two figures together suggest to me that all those earning in excess of around £35,000 should now start thinking very carefully about what their next move is.
I think one also has to ask what level of cuts are going to be exercise on the current salaries of those remaining in employment.
How about a 25% pay cut for all those earning over £40,000?
Or maybe not paying as much as £60,000 to the Head of the Mayor’s Office?
The Local Government Association is now predicting job losses some 40% higher than first predicted – with some 140,000 jobs being lost across the country as a whole.
Read 140,000 council jobs set to be shed in the next year – LGA for more about this
The Mayor can maybe show us how ‘leadership by example’ works in this context.
sorry forgot the URL which is http://www.eastlondonadvertiser.co.uk/news/tower_hamlets_council_staff_warned_of_job_cuts_1_736647
Thanks, you just couldn’t make it up!
the person is already employed and ready to go, this advert is only for show. this is a made up position.
Head of Mayor’s office
A job lined up for Lutfur Ali then
I don’t think there is any chance whatsoever that Lutfur Ali will be back.
If there were I guess the Standards Committee would be rev into top gear and the CEO would be required to do a disciplinary investigation of LA’s alleged previous moonlighting activities……
What I do think will happen will be that the political affiliations and any other affiliations of the person appointed will be crawled all over with a magnifying glass – preferably prior to appointment!
Hopefully somebody might think of doing a Police Check as well…….
Imagine recruiting Ted to that position!
Can’t imagine he could take the pay cut 😉
I think Bodrul Islam is disappointed the advertisement was internal only…