SOUTHEND Council’s chief executive, who steps down next month, has spoken of his time at the helm and his achievements.

Rob Tinlin took up his post in March 2005 after seven years as chief executive at South Northamptonshire District Council.

He said: “When I first arrived there were only two services classed as excellent - benefits and leisure - and the rest were a mixed bag of delivery and it felt as if we weren’t really meeting the expectations of the town. There were some real challenges.”

Shortly after taking up his post, Mr Tinlin learned the Audit Commission was about to intervene in the then poorly operating authority. He said: “That was the spur to try and drive an improvement programme on the council

“However, the big challenge in my first year was I arrived in March and in October the pier caught fire. By 5am we were on prime time news in Australia. That was when I realised it was true - the pier is world famous.

“We had to ship the fire brigade out to the seaward side and they just contained the flames. They’d managed to get one of the Shell fire tugs across from one of the Shell refineries. It swung its hose round on to the the generator plant and the power of the hose blew the doors in and short circuited all the electricity. The fire brigade were sitting there in complete darkness at the end of the pier.

“The next morning we were asked if we were going to rebuild it and Anna Waite [then council leader] and I pledged we were going going to put something back on the end of the pier. Hence, eventually the Royal Pavilion. It took several years but it was a delivery of a promise and that was special.”

The council’s achievements under Mr Tinlin’s watch have been many, including being named UK Council of the Year in 2012.

Mr Tinlin said: “We took the trophy round the whole building and staff were coming up and stroking it. It was the one trophy we had ever received for the whole organisation because the submission was about what everybody had done. It was almost a recognition that we’d moved from being on the cusp of intervention from the Audit Commission to being recognised as being a good quality council.”

The council was also awarded UK Senior Leadership Team of the Year.

Other highlights include delivering the new Forum library, bringing in arts group Metal and building a new swimming pool. Mr Tinlin said: “We’ve got the only fully integrated university and college library in the country. It’s a learning quarter for the whole community. You get grannies and kids and the odd rough sleeper wandering in for a cup of coffee.

“Metal has pulled in a lot of investment into the town and given us things like Village Green and the Estuary Festival, two literature projects and also school projects. “

Mr Tinlin added: “Because of the Olympic diving pool at Garons we got the British Diving Championships three years in a row. Tom Daley and the Olympic team practise there. Sometimes he would sit down on the beach and Tweet and text and say he was sitting on Southend beach and he had something like 200,000 followers so we were getting free publicity with all those people reading about Southend.

“The diving and swimming clubs came together and we suddenly had a waiting list of kids who wanted to learn how to dive. Now there are lots of kids in Southend who have gold and silver medals from British Diving Championships who would never have got them. It was a real stimulus to the sporting activity and achievement. That was a real win.”

What the future holds

ROB Tinlin will stand down next month after 12 years but he says he has no plans to slow down just yet and already has a new role with the NHS.

Mr Tinlin, 63, will move from Westcliff back to Scotland with his wife Kirsty who is retired from Thurrock Council planning department.

The couple have two sons who were educated at Westcliff High School and are now finishing university. They sold the family home in Leigh a year ago and are set to make a new life.
Mr Tinlin said: “We both see it as the next opportunity in life. The time to move on from the job is when you are still enjoying it.
“I’m going to move back up north and get my accent back. I’m not going to find a pipe, a cardigan and slippers - I’ll go hunt haggis or something.

“I’d like to go hill walking again and I’ve always wanted to learn a musical instrument. When I was a kid I started learning the bagpipes and the guy that was teaching me died so that was only partly achieved.

“I have been appointed as non-executive director of NHS Digital which part of the NHS in England responsible for things like digitised personalised access to health records. That will be two to three days a month. I think whoever gets my job is really lucky. The appointment has to be approved by full council which will probably be March 23.”