Interview with Mary Orton

Mike Causey – Wrecclesham and Rowledge

Waverley Borough Councillor

Interview with Mary Orton

My Questions

(1) For how long have you been the chief executive of Waverley Borough Council, and what are three main highlights of your role so far?

I’ve been here for nearly two years now (it’s true what they say about time flying!). What I love about my job is that no two days are ever the same, and there is always so much happening, and so many things to be achieved. It’s actually really tricky to pick just three things that stand out, but if you insist, I’ll go for:

Being at the epicenter of the 2007 foot and mouth outbreak. This horrific disease had a devastating effect on local farmers and rural businesses, and was a disaster that nobody could have predicted. We had a full-scale emergency response team working for over three weeks, concentrating on getting reliable information out to the public, and pressurizing the Government to be more sensitive to what the local community needed – such as having local footpaths closed.

Being named in the top 20 of the Times “Best Councils to Work For” competition in 2008. Waverley’s staff team have been through a lot of change over the past two years, and it felt incredibly rewarding for them to have given such a strong vote of confidence in their employer. And it was a great party! I got sponsorship for our tickets, so we were able to take 15 staff to celebrate.

Our ongoing campaign to get back our rent money for our tenants. A year ago, I started lobbying local government colleagues to speak up and challenge the nonsensical Government finance system for Council housing. We are now getting national attention and making real progress in pressing politicians to change the system. I feel really proud to have started something of national importance that could have a huge impact on people in this community.

(2) When was the last time you visited the ward of Wrecclesham and Rowledge, and for what purpose?

Just a few weeks ago – but by accident! I took a wrong turning on the way back from a site visit in south Farnham to look at a piece of open space in a housing estate that nobody had been maintaining.

(3) Your weekly emails to councillors indicate an open, and a conversational, approach to communication. How would you like to see Waverley further harness the tools of emerging social media, and to what specific ends?

Waverley already uses a very wide range of communication methods – ranging from good old-fashioned letters, to Facebook (the medium of choice of our Top Youth Council). I am particularly pleased with our website (remember how dated and clunky the old one looked), and our funky new logo. I am keen for Waverley and our services to communicate with people in whatever ways work best. But most important, I think, is word-of-mouth communication. People talk, and people tend to trust what they hear from their friends. I often remind my staff team that every time they talk to a customer, the impression the make will be talked about – so it really matters to make it a good impression.

(4) Have you always worked in the public sector, and if so, what gives you insight into the working environment of the majority of Waverley council tax payers, in the private or self-employed sector?

I have spent 20 years in local government in London, Hertfordshire and Waverley, doing a real variety of different roles. Before that, I was a community development worker for a national charity.

I don’t think I agree with your implication that there is nothing in common between local government and business. Waverley is, in private-sector terms, a pretty large and complex business. We have 450 staff, 110 product lines, and an annual turnover of £25 million (which should be £36 million, but the Government take half of our rent money!)

Many of the jobs in Waverley are very similar to those you find in commercial organizations, and the management challenges are not that different – my management team focus on value, efficiency, people-management, marketing and communications, customer satisfaction – just like any other business. But running a Council is actually a lot more complex than running a business. We are not able to choose our products, or our customers; everything we do is in an intense public spotlight (and quite rightly too), and we exist not to make money, but to improve the lives of the residents in this area – which is an awe-inspiring responsibility. And it is precisely that aspect of local government that tends to give my staff team an extra edge. Our competitive advantage is that our people care passionately about what they do, because they know it matters to people.

(5) MPs expenses are being rigorously dissected at the moment, and in my opinion rightly so. However, the pay of local government chief executives has also come under a bit of fire. How would you defend the very high remuneration that exists, and specifically how it is right that some earn more than the Prime Minister?

There has been a lot of media hysteria about Chief Executives’ pay recently, but most of the debate has been conducted without the benefit of any actual insight into what we do, or any genuine comparisons with our private-sector equivalents. Our job is a tough one, and I have yet to meet a chief executive who does not work incredibly hard for their pay.

We run £multi-million complex businesses, and our pay actually does not compare that favourably with equivalent sized FTSE companies, or even some other public-ish organisations like housing associations. And we don’t have the benefit of colossal bonuses or shares in the company. The chiefs of the FTSE 250 companies last year received an average of £586,000 in bonuses on top of their salaries.

My basic salary is £106,000. If I were running a large city council. I could expect to earn £150,000. The average salary in a London borough is just under £170,000. Compare that to a Anchor housing association (reportedly £300,000); or BUPA care homes (£694,000).

Comparisons with the Prime Minister are not particularly meaningful – his job is more equivalent to the Leader of a Council. But by way of example, the Local Government Minister, John Healey, earns a basic salary of over £100,000, and then gets expenses on top of another £140,000.

It has always been very easy to throw criticism at local government, but I’m not sure we would survive very long without it. But I do think it is regrettable that it seems to be part of our national culture to scorn public service rather than respect it. And if we are going to attract and retain talented people in this sector, we need to give them adequate recompense.

(6) Do you have a creed that you live by, and can you summarise it in 3 sentences?

I’m not sure I have ever consciously adopted a creed, but I do have some guiding principles. I believe that you make your own luck; I like to say yes rather than saying no; I believe in love, and I believe in chocolate!

(7) East Street is not only a political hot potato right now, but also potentially a long-term income stream for the council. The current climate in both general economic and specific construction industry terms, does cast serious doubt on the viability of the scheme, and raises the question of whether Waverley should take urgent measures to ensure its investment is protected somehow, all on behalf of its residents. What do you think we should do?

I think we should do exactly what we are doing. At the end of last year, the Council agreed to extend our contract with Crest Nicholson to the end of 2010 in the light of the current economic slowdown. This gives us a chance to be ready for the upturn when it comes, In the meantime, there is a lot to do in preparation for the development of the site – most importantly, land acquisition of the two plots which do not currently belong to the Council. All of this work protects the Council’s asset (the site) and prepares us to take advantage of better economic conditions when they come.

(8) We face unprecedented adversity with regard to our social housing responsibilities. The ‘negative subsidy’ of over half our rental income is a locally well known outrage, but to what extent is it realistic to expect a central government change of heart? If not, what are our other options?

The one thing that is guaranteed to influence national politicians is public pressure. The campaign I launched a year ago has had tremendous success so far, because it has got people all over the country talking about housing finance – previously the received wisdom was that it was too complicated and technical for anyone to understand. We have shifted the terms of the debate – everyone can understand the basic unfairness of robbing from the poor to give to the Government!

The Leader of the Council and I were recently invited to a round table discussion with Ian Wright MP (the under Secretary of State for Local Government), at which he unveiled the proposals that the current government review of the system is considering. And there definitely has been a big shift in their thinking – self-financing for Councils is now being seriously debated. But we do need to keep the pressure on – and not just on this government, but on the Conservative party as well. We have a once in a generation opportunity to put this injustice right, and there are now a lot of people battling with us to achieve that.

(9) In my experience, planning in Waverley is hardly ever mentioned in flattering terms, this being fair considering we came 364th out of 365 planning authorities in England and Wales last year based our ability to meet delivery targets for decisions. What are we doing about our timeliness, and how can we regain the confidence of the market?

When I restructured the Council’s management just over a year ago, I deliberately took planning into my own department, because of the serious underperformance in that service. Since then, a lot has changed. We have a new service head, and a new management culture. Every member of staff is now monitored against weekly performance targets, and the performance figures have improved enormously as a result.

But speed is not the only important thing – what matters more, I think, is the quality of decision-making. We measure that by tracking the numbers of decisions that are overturned at appeal, the satisfaction of our customers, the success of our enforcement work, and ultimately, the beauty and character of the area. We have put a lot of resources this year into our new pre-application service, to work with developers and home-owners before they even submit an application, so that they start with a better understanding of what is possible, and that, more than the speed of processing applications, is what will really make an impact on ensuring we get good development in Waverley.

(10) What’s your favourite coffee?

I always buy fair trade coffee, and it has to be real, not instant. At home, I drink Sainsbury’s own, with the red label. But for a special treat it has to be Costa hazelnut latte, with cream on top.

Reader Questions

To what extent do you find that party politics works against the interests of the community? [Submitted by Alan Lovell]

I think that if party politics did not exist, we would probably have to invent it. I think it is actually very healthy to have vibrant and active local politics, and that it is good for communities rather than bad. And in my experience, most people get involved with local democracy not in order to pursue an ideology, but to make a positive difference to their local area – whatever political party they happen to be a member of.

Why are no executive summaries provided for the Council’s Local Development Framework Core Strategy Topic Papers? In their current format they are hostile to review. [Submitted by Brian Edmonds]

I am sorry to hear that you found these topic papers difficult to read. Your feedback is very useful, and your suggestion to have summaries in future policy discussion papers is a good one. But I do hope that you took the opportunity to respond to the consultation, and to put in your views about the important issues that will affect Waverley over the next 10 – 20 years.

What one area of Waverley Council’s current activities if delivered jointly with another nearby Council would yield the biggest savings? [Submitted by Adam Taylor-Smith]

I spend a considerable amount of time working with Councillors and my staff team on ways to reduce our operating costs. Since I have been at Waverley we have made really excellent progress: I have devolved responsibility for service costs to the service managers, and every year we undertake an extensive “star chamber” review – scrutinising every single area of expenditure across all our services. I have also slimmed down our top management structure.

As a result, we have saved over £2 million from our cost base. And it is important to note that these savings were achieved through good old-fashioned management processes.

I have yet to see a real-life example of shared services that has produced anything like that size of savings for any individual Council. Shared services are very fashionable at the moment, and there is a danger of jumping on bandwagons. But in my experience, the only sure way to realise the savings is not to just share what we currently do and how we currently do it, but to redesign the services first.

That said, there are some very important services that I think are crying out for Surrey-wide collaboration, and top of my list is waste management. Other counties – most notably Somerset and Hampshire – have set up county-wide service partnerships, and these are resulting in streamlined processes, improved purchasing power and reduced overheads (such as depots and machinery). Surrey has a strategic waste partnership, and my view is that it is time for it to take some serious steps towards a more formal service merger.

If Mrs Orton were to be offered additional resources to boost tourism via the cultural economy, which three of the following would she opt for as new professional provision in the Waverley area:

Dance – Modern/Ballet

Art – Painting/Sculpture/Installations

Music – Jazz/Pop/Classical Concerts

Theatre – Traditional/Musical

Literature – Festival/Writer/Poet in Residence for Waverley Borough [Submitted by Celia Sandars]

The answer is that it is not for me to say – the policies and priority actions within the Cultural Strategy are political choices made, quite properly, by Councillors. My job is not to choose the strategy but to seek to implement it in accordance with the Council’s wishes.

At present 51 out of the total 57 Borough Council seats are held by one party. As a politically impartial officer, how do you define your role as the Chief Executive in relation to all of the elected members and how do you ensure that the ability of the small number of minority group members to represent the concerns and interests which are expressed to them is fully respected and adequately safeguarded by you and your officers? Do you see this as a matter of particular concern where any one party has such a large majority? [Submitted by Richard Sandars]

The first thing to say is that it is not my role to seek in any way to “even out” the political majority. The reason that we currently have a decisive political majority in Waverley is because that was the result of the election. And my primary role is to ensure that the Council delivers the policies and priorities of the Council – so don’t be surprised if these policies are those of the majority group.

But the local government system gives a lot of opportunities to all Councillors, of whatever political group, to pursue their own interests and concerns. Our constitutional procedures allow for a very open and inclusive style of decision making – for example, any Councillor is entitled to attend any meeting, and speak on any issue on the agenda; our Overview and Scrutiny Committees are all chaired by opposition politicians (which is not the case in all Councils), and opposition politicians are closely involved in Special Interst Groups (which look at policy formulation on important issues, such as leisure).

I encourage open and pro-active communication between Councillors and the staff team. Every Councillor can see me about any subject whenever they want. I send an email to all Councillors at the end of every week to tell them what I have been doing, and I organise briefing sessions for all Councillors whenever we have a major issue to discuss.

I meet the minority group members once a month, which is an opportunity for them to raise any concerns that they might have. We organise regular training opportunities for Councillors – covering everything from how to use IT systems to how to table a motion at a Council meeting.

But it is not my job to do the politics on behalf of the politicians. I don’t provide the questions – that bit is up to them.

Mike Causey – Wrecclesham and Rowledge