A year of action and change in local and central government

Jes Ladva, Managing Partner, Government, Finance and Technology analyses local authority CEO data for candidate trends and examines the likely impact of new legislation.

An important aspect of my role in identifying the best executive candidates to introduce to our clients is keeping my finger on the pulse of recruitment activity. The senior new hires carousel, if you will.

Every year, I (with the help of my brilliant research team) compile a list of CEO appointments within local government. Not so much a Who’s Who as a Who’s Gone Where. I don’t for one moment wish to pretend that the data I’ve garnered since the beginning of 2024 is totally comprehensive. It isn’t. But it does reveal some interesting trends.

Let’s begin with the upper-tier local authorities in England. My personal tracking data – admittedly, that sounds a bit like a Strava session – covers 30 interim and permanent CEO appointments in this category. In terms of gender, there was near parity: 13 of the successful candidates were female, 17 were male.  

What’s more illuminating is to look at their experience – what qualified them for the top job. Twelve of the 30 had previous experience as a CEO. Of the 18 ‘first timers’, 16 were promoted internally, with only two hired from other councils.

This raises a couple of intriguing questions. Do upper-tier local authorities always cast their net wide enough when searching for the best executive talent?  And what barriers do external candidates face when looking to land first-time CEOs roles?  In case of interest, the two successful external first-time CEO candidates were Jess Gibbons at Brighton & Hove City Council (formerly Chief Operations Officer, BCP Council) and Nick Hibberd at Bristol City Council (previously involved in Corporate Management/Transformation at Croydon Council). Across all 18 first-timers, corporate roles predominated.

Now let’s look at district council level. Here my data covers 16 CEO appointments. First of all, there’s greater gender disparity – just five successful women candidates, compared with 11 men.

Overall, four candidates (only 25%) had previous CEO experience, which perhaps is to be expected with smaller councils. The biggest difference from upper-tier authorities is that among the 12 first timers, nine (75%) were hired from other councils/employers. Clearly it is not as hard for external candidates to land CEO roles at district council level.

The data also leads me to a favourite topic of mine, cross-sector movement or ‘porosity’. Two of the successful CEO candidates came from outside local government. Cherwell DC’s Gordon Stewart is the erstwhile COO of The Institute of Cancer Research, while Salisbury City Council’s Asa Thorpe was Head of Enterprise and Commercial at University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust.

My data for four combined authority appointments has a pleasing symmetry to it, 50:50 for both male/female and first-time/existing CEO candidates. The admittedly smaller pool of data I have for Scottish and Welsh authorities I’ll keep up my sleeve, for now at least.

Another busy year of candidate introductions and appointments lies ahead. This should be looked at in the context of the Devolution White Paper, published on 16 December 2024, which promises significant reorganisation of local government that will impact every council and community in England. Big changes are coming. And where there is change clearly there are opportunities.

That holds true in central government as well. In December, Sir Chris Wormald was announced as the new Cabinet Secretary and in a message to half a million civil servants promised a "rewiring of the way the government works." Sir Olly Robbins, who had been seen as a contender for the Cabinet Secretary post is instead succeeding Sir Philip Barton as the leading civil servant in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.

Undoubtedly, these moves (and others), together with the rewiring and restructuring aims of the Labour government, will trigger transformation. If you’d like to chat about trends, opportunities or talent, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.