THE new Cheshire West and Chester Council came into existence almost a year ago following a massive reorganisation of local government.

In the first of a series of articles, David Norbury talks to council leader Mike Jones about the culture and aspirations of the new council.

LESS than 12 months after taking over services for the 327,500 people in Cheshire West and Chester, the new borough council is already heading to be one of the top 10 authorities in the country by April.

The half billion pound authority is the outcome the Tories did not want.

They refused to sign up to the bid by some of Cheshire’s six district councils to split the former county council, dating back to the late 19th century, into two.

County chief executive Jeremy Taylor exhausted himself in putting across the argument the four-star council, which already provided 80 per cent of local government services across Cheshire, should take over the remainder.

He failed to persuade the Government and the reorganisation went ahead, despite a famous Commons outburst by the late Crewe and Nantwich MP Mrs Gwyneth Dunwoody (Labour).

In May 2008, voters went to the polls and an astonishing result saw the West Cheshire map turn firmly blue. Tories took 55 of the 72 Cheshire West and Chester seats, giving them a 38-seat majority.

Labour was reduced to just 13 seats and the Lib Dems to four.

Chester city councillor Mike Jones (Con), a former Lord Mayor of Chester, became leader with former Vale Royal Borough Council leader Clr Les Ford (Con) as his deputy, holding the powerful resources portfolio in his firm, professorial grip.

In Autumn, 2008, the new council, which has adopted the Labour government’s provision for a ‘strong leader’ approach backed by a small executive drawn from the administration, brought in Mr Steve Robinson, who had been chief executive at Stoke on Trent City Council.

And the Tories made it very clear the new council would be very different in style from what had gone before.

Clr Jones said: “The question I asked myself as leader is what sort of council did we actually want to create that people would think is a fantastic new borough council.

“The conclusion I came to was it was certainly not one of the existing four councils.

“They all had the same sort of image. So I made it very clear to all the staff I come into contact with, including senior management conferences with question and answer sessions which I did in July 2008, that we were to create a new council which would have its own identity and we would build a new culture which would be our own way of doing things.

“In 2011 [when CWAC councillors face the next election] I am relatively comfortable that we will have a good working majority.

“2015 will be a much more challenging election but from my point of view that is five years away so I have time to really make a difference in Cheshire West and Chester.

“And that is why when I appointed a chief executive, I was very conscious about the sort of person I wanted, someone who was open minded about change and prepared to drive out unnecessary bureaucracy to create an efficient bureaucracy.

“We have to be bureaucratic because we are a public organisation but when I made that appointment, that view was very much shared by the chief executive.

“What we need to do from a public point of view, and residents do need to understand this, is that if they want a council that wants to make decisions and actually move things on and actually improve the quality of life for every one of our residents, they have to support a council which wants to make a difference, change things and occasionally make a mistake. Nobody is perfect’“.

Clr Jones admits it has been ‘a real roller coaster’.

“I came here actually inheriting three excellent councils and one good council,” he points out.

“What we have to address is the creation of a new organisation with a new culture.

“It will take us three years to achieve that new culture but we are putting a stamp on the organisation about what we expect.

“It is also about an organisation which is prepared to listen to what people want to see happen.

“For too long in local government, the approach has been about local authorities delivering a central government agenda.

“We still have to do that but actually the next few years, so far as this council is concerned, is about listening to citizens, the community, the voluntary sector and the private sector and saying how can we help.

“Just to get our officers to stop and listen and see how they can say yes rather than no is another cultural shift we want to achieve as a new council.

“It is about saying you are in a much better position to actually do this job for us than we are so what can we do to support you to do it.

Clr Jones concluded: “If we get it right, then we will create a council which is unique in the UK whatever that council looks like and we are working on that.”