30 January 2004
Anna Klonowski, the director of finance responsible for stabilising the troubled London Borough of Hackney's budget problems, has been head-hunted to do a similar job at North East Lincolnshire Borough Council.
Public Finance has learnt that the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and the Labour-controlled council have reached an agreement for the department to fund part of Klonowski's salary while she is seconded from London to Grimsby until April 2004.
But the ODPM this week denied it had intervened in the management of the council, as it had done in neighbouring Kingston upon Hull and previously with Hackney in 2001.
The ODPM instead claimed that the authority and department had 'collaborated' to try to improve the council's performance.
'What has been agreed is an arrangement that is on offer to all "recovering" councils – departmental support and advice,' a spokeswoman added.
Klonowski's appointment follows long-running concerns about North East Lincolnshire council at the Audit Commission, raised most recently in the authority's 2003 Comprehensive Performance Assessment.
A commission spokesman told PF that inspectors still had 'very serious concerns over financial management' at the council and 'would welcome any move to rectify these quickly'.
The commission gave the authority a 'weak' rating in last year's updated CPA, although it had improved during 2003 from a 'poor' ranking. Inspectors found that the borough faced a 'severe budget crisis and a daunting agenda of major initiatives'.
Klonowski is now expected to oversee a difficult financial overhaul at North East Lincolnshire, which could include cuts to its traffic, education and social services commitments.
The council's chief executive Jim Leivers estimates that the authority, which has a net revenue budget of £160m per year, must find more than £7m in savings during the 2004/05 financial year alone. He recently claimed that its proposed budget 'barely adds up, as it is'.
The previous finance director, Andy Ecelson, left the council earlier this month following a review of senior officers' posts.
Klonowski helped turn Hackney's finances around after she arrived in 2000 to find a £40m budget deficit. The authority balanced its budget for the 2003/04 financial year
PFjan2004
