Official Brent Council Press release
Carolyn Downs has been announced as the new chief executive of Brent Council.
Chief executive of the Local Government Association since November 2011, Carolyn will bring a wealth of experience to Brent.
Prior to her appointment at the Local Government Association, Carolyn was chief executive of the Legal Services Commission, where her role was to drive performance and secure a stronger financial future.
Carolyn was also previously deputy permanent secretary and director general of corporate performance at the Ministry of Justice. She was responsible for all corporate services, including finance, estates, personnel, risk management, business planning and communications.
From 2003 to 2009, Carolyn was Chief Executive of Shropshire County Council, where she was responsible for a budget of £500 million a year and a staff of 12,000.
Cllr Muhammed Butt, Leader of Brent Council, said:
"I am delighted that after a rigorous and competitive recruitment process, we are able to offer the role of chief executive at Brent Council to Carolyn Downs.
"Carolyn was the outstanding candidate in what was a highly competitive recruitment process, and I am confident that she will bring with her a wealth of public sector experience and enthusiasm to Brent, at a time when this council and local authorities everywhere face such unprecedented challenges.
"I have no doubt at all that with Carolyn's passion for and experience in local government and her drive to succeed, that we have appointed the right person to help navigate the borough through the challenging times ahead and help make Brent a better borough."
Christine Gilbert, the current chief executive at Brent Council, said:
"I would like to congratulate Carolyn on her appointment, her experience and skills will be a huge asset to Brent.
"It has been a great privilege to have served as the chief executive for Brent Council. Brent is a wonderful place and I know Carolyn will be warmly welcomed both inside and outside the civic centre.
"I wish her every success in her new role."
Carolyn will take up the role later in the year, once her appointment has been ratified at a full council meeting on 22 June 2015.
End of Press Release
Carolyn Downs has been announced as the new chief executive of Brent Council.
Chief executive of the Local Government Association since November 2011, Carolyn will bring a wealth of experience to Brent.
Prior to her appointment at the Local Government Association, Carolyn was chief executive of the Legal Services Commission, where her role was to drive performance and secure a stronger financial future.
Carolyn was also previously deputy permanent secretary and director general of corporate performance at the Ministry of Justice. She was responsible for all corporate services, including finance, estates, personnel, risk management, business planning and communications.
From 2003 to 2009, Carolyn was Chief Executive of Shropshire County Council, where she was responsible for a budget of £500 million a year and a staff of 12,000.
Cllr Muhammed Butt, Leader of Brent Council, said:
"I am delighted that after a rigorous and competitive recruitment process, we are able to offer the role of chief executive at Brent Council to Carolyn Downs.
"Carolyn was the outstanding candidate in what was a highly competitive recruitment process, and I am confident that she will bring with her a wealth of public sector experience and enthusiasm to Brent, at a time when this council and local authorities everywhere face such unprecedented challenges.
"I have no doubt at all that with Carolyn's passion for and experience in local government and her drive to succeed, that we have appointed the right person to help navigate the borough through the challenging times ahead and help make Brent a better borough."
Christine Gilbert, the current chief executive at Brent Council, said:
"I would like to congratulate Carolyn on her appointment, her experience and skills will be a huge asset to Brent.
"It has been a great privilege to have served as the chief executive for Brent Council. Brent is a wonderful place and I know Carolyn will be warmly welcomed both inside and outside the civic centre.
"I wish her every success in her new role."
Carolyn will take up the role later in the year, once her appointment has been ratified at a full council meeting on 22 June 2015.
End of Press Release
Further information about Carolyn Downs from the LGASo no connection with Tower Hamlets or Ofsted, just shared intials with the head of Brent HR.
Carolyn Downs has been Chief Executive of the LGA since November 2011.
Before this she was chief executive of the Legal Services Commission where her role was to drive performance and secure a stronger financial future.
She was also previously deputy permanent secretary and director general of corporate performance at the Ministry of Justice. She was responsible for all corporate services, including finance, estates, personnel, risk management, business planning and communications.
From 2003 to 2009, Carolyn was Chief Executive of Shropshire County Council, where she was responsible for a budget of £500 million a year and a staff of 12,000.
Carolyn had worked for the same council as director of environment and community services since 1999 and before this, worked for a range of other councils including Calderdale Metropolitan Borough Council, Stevenage Borough Council, the London Borough of Haringey, and Bolton Metropolitan Borough Council where she started her working life as a library assistant.
16 comments:
What brilliant News
WOW at long last.
The wall collapses and the old guard goes.
But does she have the chemistry
Lets hope she has the balls to stop the rot that Butt and his cronies have brought to Brent
This does look to be good news.
Whether the points that were raised on "Wembley Matters" about the appointment process (and possible "crony" candidates) played any part in persuading those in power at the Civic Centre that they should appoint a good and apparently independent candidate, rather than face the outcry which would have followed if they did not, we will probably never know.
I was afraid that this evening's Full Council annual meeting might see the appointment of either Christine Gilbert or Lorraine Langham pushed through without any chance for proper consideration by backbench councillors. Now the Press Release concludes:
'Carolyn will take up the role later in the year, once her appointment has been ratified at a full council meeting on 22 June 2015.'
This still assumes that the Senior Staff Appointments Sub-Committee's choice will be ratified, but I can see no reason why it should not be.
Still no actual leaving date for Christine Gilbert, but I suspect that she will want to be out of the "hot seat" before the amount of the Employment Tribunal award of compensation, damages and costs payable by Brent Council to Rosemarie Clarke becomes public knowledge (probably in September 2015, unless there are any further delays).
Philip Grant.
Let's hope she gets rid if cara davani once she hears about the employment tribunal case she was involved in
At last. Untainted (as far as we know). She'll have done her research and she'll know what she needs to do.
Mike Hine
I doubt if they could find a local government exec who didn't read Rotten Boroughs. She'll know how much Brent's rep has gone to the dogs. Let's hope for a new professionalism.
Mike Hine
Links so far are high earners
Let's hope for new professional leadership with integrity. Let's hope the new CD is someone who will scrutinise poor practise and root out bullying at it's inception to ensure services for vulnerable people become high quality services and those who do not have a voice no longer suffer in silence!
She won't need it. Butt is an inert substance.
Let's also hope the Axe Cutting of front line services ends.
Across London Labour has a good opportunity to fight back against austerity cuts and deliver services people want and need.
A change at the top can only deliver a nee approach and let's hope coming from LGA Carolyn Downs stands up for local people.
A good step in the right direct might be for her to voluntarly declare she will not accept all of the salary on offer.
It does seem she is getting pay rise from around £175k to the near £200k Brent have been paying.
In these times of austerity if new people at the top do not start leading by example then real change will not happen.
Employed on £200k would be £106.83 per hour, which is £100.13 per hour more than those empoyed on the minimum wage @ £6.70 per hour.
Other interesting fact: the difference between her supposed last salary and her new one is £25000 pa which is the amount which some Tory the other day referred to the other day as 'average salary' and then got blasted by people on less than that wondering what world he was living in.
Just seems a shame she didn't get the Chief Executive job in E8 though, really.
She could have been Hackney Downs.
Edited comment from a reader: Let's hope Carolyn Downs does get [rid of those linked to the poor practice exosed by the Employment Tribunal case]. Let's hope she scrutinises carefully the Rosemarie Clarke's tribunal case as well as any other potential cases and complaints about bullying and harassment within the Council. Only then will the Local Authority redeem its reputable name in our community as such actions will act as an assurance that all workers, service users and local residents will be listened to and treated with the dignity and resect they deserve. Balls or not - let's hope she is a principled woman of substance; a woman who will change Brent for the better and create a borough that all will be proud to work and live in.
Congratulations to Martin and contributors to Wembley Matters without whom this apparent break with the past wouldn't have happened.
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