Council facing takeover fears

4:30pm Wednesday 26th July 2006

The Government could take over the running of Southend Council unless drastic action is taken to reorganise its management structure, according to the authority's chief executive.

Rob Tinlin's hard-hitting report has already been backed by the council's cabinet and will be considered by all members at a meeting tomorrow.

A radical restructuring of the council, cutting down on senior officers and likely to lead to redundancies and early retirement, is planned as part of the review.

Mr Tinlin warned: "There is concern the council is not improving quickly enough and, without changes such as those proposed here, it may require intervention to ensure the levels of performance and customer focus are considered appropriate."

Mr Tinlin said the council's performance record in recent years was unimpressive and, in 2004, it lost points in Government inspections.

He added: "The council is regularly underachieving against its own range of targets and showing little evidence of a will to improve this position.

"The council has a range of services assessed as poor or weak, where improvement is slow."

Council leader Murray Foster admitted the report made grim reading and drastic action to restructure the top management had to be taken.

He said: "We are finding expectations are becoming increasingly higher and have to accept that major changes are necessary if these are to be achieved.

"The council has some excellent officers and, in some cases, the proposed changes will open up new opportunities for them in the future."

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