Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
In defence of the appointment of Nick Walkley
There has been a lot of controversy surrounding Haringey Council's decision to appoint Nick Walkley as our new chief executive. A lot of what happened on his current role in neighbouring Barnet has been written in the local and national media, and discussed here and elsewhere (and we desperately need it considering the 'Journal' newspaper has just shut its doors), but we need to look beyond that.
What is needed right now is a CEO who is prepared to tackle the ongoing problems within the very council administration. Councillors need to be brave in thinking; "Well, we got things wrong at present, so let us try something else for a change." We should be grateful that Walkley is prepared to come here at all. Very few in the local government community would touch the job managing a borough with such a poor reputation such as ours with a barge pole.
If Walkley has come here to consider 'thinking out of the box', then councillors... and critics here... should do so too. The borough desperately needs change and we need all the help we can get, at a time when the council hasn't even begun to prepare on how to deal with the changes, for example, in the health service and the benefit systems.
I think that in all the arguements for and against, we need to look at Walkley's appointment with an open mind.
Tags for Forum Posts: haringey chief executive, nick walkley
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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Pam, as you say, Julian Silverman's piece may be revealing. An interesting question would be how many counter-examples there are.
I was talking to a former Haringey member of staff who told me an incident with David Warwick, a former Chief Executive. Mr Warwick had his faults - who doesn't? These included a reputation for being an occasional shouter, and super-confident in his own ability and ideas.
The staff person, who was way down the pecking order, made a suggestion and been abruptly - and he thought derisively - dismissed by Mr Warwick. A few days later David Warwick spoke to the staff member again. He told him he'd been rethinking the idea and wanted a paper explaining why and how it could work. A long time later - after the scheme had been successfully set up - Mr Warwick made a point of congratulating him for a good piece of work.
Of course, an organisational culture is modelled by both a Chief Executive and a Leader. So in the past few years Claire Kober has to accept her share of the blame for how dire things have got.
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Cllr Claire Kober has just sent an email to all councillors about the appointment of Nick Walkley. Hopefully the mutterings have reached even the most stale and fetid corners of the River Park House eyrie.
I shared this with a number of Labour Party members who burst out laughing because it's yet another Kober Klassic example of Simon Hoggart's Law of Nonsensical Reverse.
(A couple of people asked me about this. Hoggart suggested rephrasing a statement to say its opposite, then asking if any reasonable person could possible agree with it. If they couldn't then it's vacuous. )
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Dear Colleagues,
As you know next Tuesday’s Extraordinary Full Council meeting will be to confirm the recommendation of the cross-party member panel to appoint Nick Walkley as Chief Executive. The panel’s unanimous decision to recommend Nick’s appointment followed an extensive recruitment and selection process. All the panel agreed Nick as the standout candidate for the post.
As Chief Executive, Nick will be central to supporting the delivery of our ambitious priorities to:
- Work with business to create jobs for our residents
- Deliver the regeneration to key areas of the borough
- Tackle the housing challenges
- Improve school standards and outcomes for children and young people
- Deliver responsive, high quality services.
The scale of the challenge we face as a council is immense and fundamental to delivering our priorities is a well led organisation. We are ambitious for the future of Haringey and we must have the confidence that the council is able to match our ambition with delivery. I am sure that Nick, drawing on his extensive experience as a public servant in local and national government, will ensure that the organisation continues to effectively respond to the political and policy steer we provide.
Many of you will be keen to meet with Nick and an open session for all members to meet with him is being organised for 6pm on the 25 October. More details relating to this session will follow.
Kind regards
Claire Kober
Leader of the Council
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Permalink Reply by Old-Age-Emporium(OAE) on
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'What about the vegetables?'
'Oh, they'll have the same as me.'
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Nice, Eddie. Someone told me there's a chain of stores called "Claire's Accessories".
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Permalink Reply by Chris Setz on
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don't forget the Sta(u)nton set!
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Permalink Reply by pamish on
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- fresh air
- apple pie
now try some reversing:
- oppose business and delete jobs for our residents
- demolish key areas of the borough (hang on a minute...)
- ignore the housing challenges
- let school standards and outcomes for children and young people slump to zero
- Deliver unaccountable, poor quality services
What's a person spec. to say?
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I'm sure I've sometimes done it myself, Pam. It's an easy habit to fall into especially when trying to be cautious. Ed Miliband did at the early stages of his leadership. As Simon Hoggart pointed out.----- Original Message -----From: Simon HoggartTo: Alan StantonSent: Friday, February 17, 2012 6:11 PMSubject: Searching for Hoggart's Law
I called it, for want of anything better, the law of the nonsensical reverse, and last wrote about it when Ed Miliband was interviewed for the first time as Labour leader by Andrew Marr. He used four classic examples (e.g. "I have great respect for nurses"). You might be able to google it with my name, EM and AM's names.
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