1 August - Has Bexley Council done it again?

Bexley Council has appointed a new Director of Place, Gary Jones recently of Basildon Borough Council, a very important position and one must hope Bexley has chosen well. That has not always been the case.

Basildon Council has not been well run, seven Monitoring Officers in 18 months. Bexley has sometimes been careless with Monitoring Officers too. It once recruited one who had not long before been criticised by a judge for racism and bullying and another was belatedly found to lack the required legal qualifications.

Recruitment in Bexley has often proved to be ill-judged. The earliest Chief Executive that i can remember claimed to have health problems and retired prematurely with a generous pay off and pension, only to reappear in a similar post at another London Council a short time later.

His replacement came from Croydon with a skeleton or two attached. He brought with him the Police Borough Commander and his Deputy and when he moved to Tower Hamlets he took them both with him again. Isn’t that a little odd?

In Tower Hamlets he got mixed up in a bribery scandal which hit the news nationally. Allegedly guilty only of not reporting it to the police.

Another Chief Executive was recruited from Cornwell where she had acquired something of a reputation for excessive expenses.

A Finance Director was recruited who had failed to notice multi-million pound frauds in his department at two different local authorities.

Employing a husband and wife team as Director and Deputy was just plain weird. Annual report time must have been a bit fraught and did they ever manage to go on holiday together?

The new Director of Place was probably glad to get away from Basildon. Occasionally Bexley has recruited someone who did a decent job, a couple of names spring to mind. Fingers crossed that Mr. Jones turns out to be another.