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Councils choose joint chief

4:20pm Friday 29th August 2008

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By Ian Townsend »

David Buckle will run both South Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse district councils in a merger of the authorities' management teams.

He will start his new job on September 17 after being chosen ahead of the only other candidate, the Vale's chief executive, Terry Stock.

The merger is expected to save the councils £750,000 a year. The number of senior officers will be cut from 21 to 12.

A panel of members of both councils has recommended Mr Buckle's appointment and both councils are expected to rubber stamp it on Monday.

Tony de Vere, leader of the Vale council, said: "Both councils will remain independent of each other and retain their separate identities."

The councils already have joint finance services and next year will choose a single contractor for waste collection and street cleaning.

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Graham, OXON says...
10:22pm Fri 29 Aug 08

Terry Stock will be sorely missed in the Vale. Whilst many of his management team were (and sadly still are) sometimes startlingly incompetent, he himself was remarkably foresightful and efficient. During the tenure of the irascible and appallingly out-of-touch former Leader of the Council, Jerry Patterson, Terry Stock acted as an essential lightning conductor, and did much to counterbalance the repressive and anti-democratic tendencies of the former (as over the Old Gaol saga). I wish him well.

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Jerry, France says...
8:43pm Sat 30 Aug 08

Has Terry Stock had his livelihood taken away? Why were there only 2 candidates? After all, posts at this level, providing a public service, are surely required to be advertised widely – even in the OJ of the EU? When both the candidates were selected for their present positions surely it was to take on a level of responsibility for which they were deemed apt, to “run” 2 Councils is a doubling so it would have been wise to choose from a wider field?

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Neil, Abingdon says...
12:20pm Thu 4 Sep 08

I would imagine that given this job is essentially the same job just on a larger scalle, the councils were bound to only consider the two incumbents.

Terry will no doubt be due a reasonable redundancy package.

Overall it is good to see the councillors finding a way of making savings by reducing the core management costs rather than hitting services. This is the only realistic way forward for two small authorities facing the ongoing funding squeeze from the government.

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