Tories Go, Chief Executive Goes: Lib Dem Councillors at Somerset County Council Appoint New Chief Executive

Tory Councillor David Fothergill
is now ex-Leader of the Council

 

One of our Official emblems

 

Somerset Independents puts residents first. The Tories at Somerset County Council conspired with Boris Johnson's Tory Government to force through changes to Somerset's councils - against the wishes of the majority of Somerset's residents. If you remember, previously they had cancelled an election in which our candidates were ready to stand. Then we boycotted the 2022 elections which were not cancelled.

So we laughed with glee when Councillor David Fothergill refused to speak to the Local Democracy Reporter Daniel Mumby. He blamed "inappropriate" coverage by Mr Mumby. But everyone knows it was because the Tories had lost so many council seats in the May 2022 elections and Fothergill was having a strop.

Councillor Fothergill was, until then, the Leader of Somerset County Council. Now his "Local Conservatives" had lost control of the Council. Fothergill's candidates tried distancing themselves from Boris Johnson's corrupt Government despite working hand-in-glove with them - including proven dodgy Cabinet Member Robert Jenrick - to change Somerset's councils. Johnson has gone and so has Fothergill. Good riddance to both of them.

Sadly, the Lib Dems gained from the Tory demise. Lib Dem or Tory, same old story.

When the Lib Dems took majority control of the County Council, they discovered that Chief Executive Pat Flaherty was leaving to go to Harrow. Not the school, but the Council. Obviously they may have persuaded him to leave. These details are not shared with the public - see our reports on other senior officers at Somerset's councils who left under a cloud of mystery. The public just pay the council officer's huge wages, possibly huge severance package and suffer when they cut services against what the public wants or needs.

So the new Fib Dem councillors had to appoint a new Chief Executive. And they have chosen Duncan Sharkey. Unlike the lazy and censored news outlets in and around Somerset, Somerset Independents does not parrot press releases. If you want to read what Somerset County Council wants you to read, you can go to their website and see a huge photo of Mr Sharkey's impression of the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland. We include the same photo but much smaller.

Duncan Sharkey

Mr Sharkey is currently Managing Director at the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead. You can go and find out about what has happened there, if you know how to look.

It seems that we know more about Mr Sharkey than other media outlets. 

And it seems that we know more about Mr Sharkey's performance at previous councils than the Lib Dem councillors that hired him. Or perhaps they omitted some information from the County Council's PR spin?

Nice things are said about these highly-paid council officers by councillors when they join. 

Nice things are said about them when they leave by councillors (usually). Sometimes honest councillors make balanced assessments in public, but not often.

Mr Sharkey will be paid:

• £195,000 per year. Yes, you read that right:
• £16,250 per month or 
• £3,750 per week. 

This is what the Lib Dem councillors have decided.

Will Mr Sharkey be worth this huge sum? 

Will Mr Sharkey be able to cope with the huge change of scale from a Borough Council to the New Somerset Council that covers a much larger area and will destroy the district councils AND County Council, and take on bad debts, suffer proven bad councillors and take on the disastrous legacies of the districts and county councils? 

And does Mr Sharkey know where the skeletons are in the closet, some of which have been exposed by Somerset Independents and Somerset Tory MP Ian Liddell-Grainger (where are the other MPs - filling their coffers with Boris Johnson's corrupt payroll, or under investigation by Parliament)?

Somerset residents, who will pay his extortionate salary, are about to find out all of the above when he finally takes up the post in a few months time - the County says "the Autumn" which is a bit vague. The reasons for the vagueness were not explained.

Is Mr Sharkey "the boss" as described by the BBC's part-time reporter Ruth Bradley? No, he is the Head of Paid Service. The councillors are supposed to be the boss, especially Councillor Bill Revans but also his Cabinet. Councillors are supposed to represent the public.

But as readers of this website will know, many councillors lack the leadership required, and rely on officers who then can run things in their interests instead of the public interest. The proverbial "Sir Humphrey" as fans of Yes, Prime Minister will know.

That is not democracy, but bureaucracy. Sadly that seems to be all-too-common at Somerset's councils because the Lib Dem or Tory councillors are not up to the job.

Time will tell in all of these things.

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