19 December 2008
By Tash Shifrin Paul Coen, the chief executive of the Local Government Association, has been sent on gardening leave after falling out with the organisation’s political leaders over its controversial development strategy. In a statement issued on December 12, Coen said: ‘Since September, it has become increasingly difficult to have confidence that the political leadership and the managerial leadership of the LGA are at one on both the direction of travel and the day-to-day leadership of the association.’ He added that he had been ‘asked to take leave, which I have done’. Deputy chief executive John Ransford – who had been expected to retire in the spring – has stepped up in Coen’s absence. The LGA would not comment on Coen’s departure. But a senior insider said the leaders of the LGA’s political groups had two areas of concern. The insider said: ‘He clearly isn’t used to politicians, where they all work very closely together [across parties].’ This situation had been ‘exacerbated’ when Margaret Eaton took over as chair in September. Eaton signalled both her intent to maintain good cross-party relations and to ‘change the organisation’s focus’, in the wake of a review of its structures by Richard Best, when she took office. These changes – now enshrined in the LGA’s development strategy – include closer working with member councils and councillors. They also entail a controversial integration of the LGA Group – the Improvement and Development Agency, Local Government Employers, project delivery organisation 4Ps and regulatory specialist Lacors – into a single Local Government Services body. The senior insider said implementation of the strategy was a central cause of dispute between Coen and the political leaders across all parties. ‘The group leaders and the chair are very keen on getting it implemented. It’s been drifting badly,’ he said. Matters had come to a crunch after an informal meeting of the LGA’s office-holders’ group, he added. But there is unrest about elements of the development strategy among some LGA figures. One told PF that the structural changes would be complex to carry through. The LGA was funded by members’ subscriptions, he said while the IDA received a top-slice from central government grant. Two other LGA Group bodies were registered charities, and this related to their remits, he added. ‘Constitutionally, it’s a lawyer-fest. No-one has explained how this can be done. The matter is so sensitive that the LGA refused point-blank to answer questions on the development strategy. But Liberal Democrat group leader Richard Kemp said: ‘I can reassure local government that the leadership of the LGA wishes to implement the development strategy as quickly as possible to provide maximum cost savings and service to all our authorities.’ A report is now expected at the LGA’s January executive meeting. But Coen, who could not be contacted to comment this week, could be a permanent casualty. The senior source said there had been an ‘irrevocable parting of the ways’ between chief executive and politicians.
PFdec2008
