Ex-chief slams the 'arrogant' council

"Arrogant" and "superior" were just some of the accusations levied at Surrey County Council by its former chief executive.

Outgoing interim chief executive Michael Frater, who ran the council for six months, delivered the damning report to the new chief executive, David McNulty.

It comes after the council received two negative reviews, including a poor Ofsted, in relation to Children's Services and Audit Services respectively, sparking a series of restructuring.

In his report Mr Frater writes: "In January 2009 when I took up post of interim chief executive there was a significant degree of denial amongst key members and managers about the wider problems in the county council that had contributed to this situation.

"My role as interim chief executive has been to help the organisation to recognise its inherent weaknesses, to stabilise the situation and put in place key areas of work to start the recovery process."

Among the areas Mr Frater found "inherent weaknesses" were what he said were "fundamentally a failure of leadership, culture and governance in its widest sense. That failure is a shared responsibility of both members and officers."

He went on to accuse the council of having a stance that could be viewed as "superior and arrogant", being "bureaucratic", of having a "macho" style of management, a "blame culture" and said there was bullying going on which is carried out by both members and officers.

He also stated: "The organisation is widely viewed as lacking vision, direction and strategy and instead operates by a series of often disconnected short-term tactics."

Speaking to the Advertiser, the council's new council leader, Andrew Povey, said he was keen to stress that the report is about the past and is keen to improve Surrey's reputation in the future.

He said: "This is the analysis. We now know what was wrong but this is looking backwards.

"We have a new chief executive and a new leader and the general public can be very confident that we will move forward very quickly."

To look at Mr Frater's full report and one from his replacement David McNulty, visit: http://www.surreycc.gov.uk/legcom/CouncilP.nsf/meetings