"For just when ideas fail, a word comes in to save the situation" ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

Remember the plight of poor Councillor Hudson? He lost his job, so the kindly comedy mayor put some extra money in his pocket by raising his mayoral allowance by £16,554 a year. Councillor Hudson’s portfolio has been amended in an attempt to justify the extra money. It appears that an additional 195 words have been added to the portfolio (one was removed) which gives each additional word a value of £86 per year.

Here’s the portfolio in full (additions in red text – removed word is in brackets):

Role:

To take strategic lead for finance, property, assets and support services – including Human Resources, Legal and ICT.

Following the national Spending Review, to drive forward Newham’s most challenging ever efficiency savings across this significant portfolio.

To support the Mayor’s/Cabinet responsibilities on:

Annual Council Tax and Budget Strategy
Medium Term Financial Strategies
Asset and Property Management Planning and Strategy
Risk Management Strategy
Counter Fraud Strategy
Audit Plan
ICT Infrastructure
Information Management
Data Quality and Security
Corporate Procurement Strategy
Human Resources Strategy

Effective management of the Council’s financial resources, including property and assets [management] to enable continued delivery of Council services, income maximisation and achievement of corporate and service priorities.

Give political direction to officers working within the portfolio, providing leadership in the implementation of portfolio programmes and working closely with relevant directors and officers to develop policy documents.

Provide representation for the portfolio; be a figurehead in meetings with stakeholders; report as appropriate to the Mayor and Council and be the principal spokesperson for the portfolio.

Have an overview of performance management, efficiency and effectiveness of the portfolio; negotiate and broker in cases of differing priorities and disagreement.

Priorities:

To ensure that Council Tax is affordable and that resources are used effectively.

Following Newham’s most challenging financial settlement – to effectively lead and forward plan.

To drive forward ICT efficiencies and improvements.

To drive forward HR efficiencies and improvements – including oversight of all Star Chamber planning to ensure delivery of cost savings.

To effectively lead on the financial management, risk management and income maximisation of the 2012 Olympic Games.

Effective management of assets and property to ensure they remain fit for purpose and represent value for money.

Effective management of risk across the authority to ensure that relevant risks are properly recognised and assessed within the decision making process.

Effective procurement strategy and operations, including effective contract management, to ensure all contracts represent value for money.

To chair the Audit Board.

The implementation of a clear framework for entering S106 negotiations.

Development of a clear strategy for disposal, acquisitions and compliance with that strategy by clarifying the application of policy in relation to specific asset acquisition and disposal negotiations.

To monitor performance standards in Corporate Asset Management Planning, particularly on backlog maintenance, utility costs, acquisition and disposal.

To monitor performance standards in finance, particularly on cash collection, fraud management, investment and value for money.

Regular activities:

To monitor workload and performance against targets in agreement with the Mayor and to provide regular activity updates to the Mayor.

To communicate with officers by mutually agreed methods to ensure timely and appropriate political direction.

To work with the Community Executive and Community Lead Councillors to ensure an understanding of community views and to ensure that they are represented in this portfolio remit.

To speak at conferences and events as appropriate.

To attend scrutiny commissions as necessary to inform on appropriate policies and activities and advise the Mayor on specific responses as and when necessary.

To ensure full answers are given to all appropriate questions to Council/the Mayor is able to respond on all reports to Cabinet/Mayoral proceedings.

Interesting to see that the activities have remained the same.

I’ll be coming back to this as I’ll be looking through the other portfolios to see if there is any overlap (if there is, I’ll suggest to the mayor’s office that any overlapping portfolio should have its corresponding allowance reduced by £86 per word in each overlapping role or priority).

I’ll also try to make an analysis of councillor Hudson’s effectiveness in following through on his new priority of ensuring all contracts represent value for money; bit odd that this is a new priority, I would have thought it’s essential… I wonder, what was going on before councillor Hudson was instructed to keep an eye on the Council’s contracts?