Mr James Binks will start his tenure as CEO at RMBC on April 7th. Currently he is an assistant chief executive at Manchester City Council and he will replace the outgoing Steve Rumbelow, who is stepping down after 10 years in the role. He will also assume the role of NHS Greater Manchester (GM) place lead for Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale (Two jobs?)
Mr Binks says “It’s a fantastic honour and privilege to be given this opportunity. I’m looking forward to getting to know the place, getting out and about in the borough, visiting different townships and wards, talking to people on the ground, getting under the skin of things. I want to be a collaborative leader but also get to the next level of detail; working out where I can help to move things forward.”
I think this sounds very encouraging and I wish him well in the job, although I am uncertain as yet what these mean – ‘getting under the skin of things’,‘get to the next level of detail’ and ‘move things forward’. We shall see.
He adds, “In my current and previous roles I have been able to look at all parts of the system and work in different areas with a real focus on reform and transformation of services. What I find really fulfilling and exciting is the cross-cutting element; how all the different parts can come together and support each other.” Sounds brilliant, and to me daunting, but I only have observational experience of the council’s working.
The council have had to make lots of difficult decisions about where to cut department budgets again this year, and council tax has risen by 4.99% for residents to cover some of the deficit. Recently, residents have been asked to make choices about where the Council can make cuts in services to make the financial savings because of the budget restraints – various options were put forward such as stopping bowling green grass cutting, charging for bin replacement and reducing grants to the health promoting ‘Living Well’ service. Areas of service have to be retracted, or reduced, to save others costing some areas of the community more than others. Some services sacrificed for others.
However, some of our BOLD members recalled that in 2016 there was motion discussed in council, and voted in favour of, to reduce the number of councillors in each ward from 3 to 2, thus making a huge saving in the large expenses bill. For some reason, though, this decision was never ‘actioned’. In fact, the next year the full number of councillors was awarded a 34% increase in expenses and the leader of the council a 51% increase. What happened to this?
One of our first actions at BOLD, as Mr Binks takes office, is to inform him of the above as he ‘gets under the skin of things’. Where did the issue of reducing the number of councillors from 60 to 40 as an efficiency and cost-cutting move disappear to?
We have not a clue as to why this reversal of intent to cut costs occurred, no explanation has been forthcoming. It has been evident in the last few years that some wards can indeed function with 2 representatives only due to the unfortunate long term ill health of some councillors. What was the reason for the scrapping of the decision to reduce the number of councillors? Was a meeting about it minuted? We do hope that Mr Binks will take note of this as he ‘moves things forward’.