Bryn’s Porsche targeted again: Leighton Andrews.

WELSH Public Services Minister has announced his intention to crackdown on Chief Officer pay in local government.

Citing the provision to Mr Parry-Jones of a Porsche Panamera, reported in The Herald last May, as ‘appalling’, Mr Andrews went on to state that stories about the pay and pay-offs offered to council chief executives were ‘scandalous’.

The comments formed part of a biting critique of the quality of local government leadership across Wales, which Mr Andrews condemned as reactionary and not doing enough to head off crises in key services councils deliver.

Asking why councils seemed satisfied to wait for inspectors to point out ‘major failings’ in ‘big services areas like education and social services’, rather than tackle problems themselves, the Minister went on to say that it was “time for action” on local government in Wales.

Speaking ahead of an address to the Institute of Welsh Affairs on Tuesday (Jan 20), Mr Andrews repeated his determination to reduce the £25m annual cost of senior council officers’ pay ‘very significantly’.

Mr Andrews’ view followed hot on the heels of Plaid Cymru Leader Leanne Woods’ statement regarding senior officer pay, which showed that Pembrokeshire’s Chief Officer received fifteen and a half times the pay of the council’s lowest paid employee.

Responding on the question of pay ratios, Council Leader, Jamie Adams, said: “We do not have a Chief Executive at present and the table does not reflect the current position as regards to the Acting Head of Paid Service. It is still to be established whether or not the Authority appoints a new Chief Executive and therefore the issue of the salary level is still to be decided.”

Mr Andrews’ comments form part of an aggressive campaign by the Welsh Government to shake up local government and public services in Wales. It is known that the Health Minister Mark Drakeford is considering plans to further streamline the structure of health-care provision in Wales, with an emphasis on bringing the few recalcitrant Community Health Council’s into line. While Mr Andrews’ reputation as a political bruiser is demonstrated by the brutal way he dealt with Cardiff Metropolitan University while Education Minister.

The use of local government as a political football is not, however, confined to politicians from Cardiff Bay. Preseli Pembrokeshire MP Stephen Crabb has attracted criticism for his comments about the travails of Pembrokeshire County Council, with Cllr Mike Stoddart saying that the MP’s intervention is ‘a belated attempt to jump on the anti-IPPG bandwagon’.

Mr Stoddart goes on to challenge Stephen Crabb to produce evidence of his public pronouncements on the subject during the last ’well over ten years’; saying that this should not be difficult as he has been ‘saying this for a long time’.

BBC Wales have reported that the council is shortly to reveal just how much it paid in monthly instalments for the former Chief Executive’s Porsche Panamera, having failed in an attempt to conceal it.