It sounds like a dream job, with a warm welcome promised in an outstandingly beautiful area – and a starting salary of £118,251 for 35 hours per week.
But this ‘unique opportunity for an inspiring individual’ to be in charge of 5,000 staff could prove more challenging than expected for the successful applicant.
And influential voices have questioned whether Argyll and Bute Council should go ahead with appointing a new chief executive at all.
As revealed here, Sally Loudon resigned as the council’s most senior civil servant earlier this year, to take on a new role as chief executive of the umbrella body COSLA
Suffering from depopulation and fresh from announcing £10m cutbacks which will see more than 80 people lose their jobs, Argyll and Bute Council certainly needs a ‘dynamic, confident’ leader.
But MSP Mike Russell, whose constituency includes part of the council area, has said the council shouldn’t replace the chief executive post, using the cash instead to protect school librarians’ jobs.
And this website highlighted the fact that the chief executive’s office was almost completely exempt from public consultation into the council’s cost-cutting plans, which seemed to target front line services instead.
Instead, the council has advertised the post, saying: “We are looking for a dynamic, confident chief executive who will be an ambassador for Argyll and Bute and who will drive forward the kind of innovation and ambition that we and our communities share.
“Argyll and Bute is recognised as one of Scotland’s most promising regions and has an economy of opportunity ready to deliver future prosperity.”
The starting salary of £118,251 compares to £142,500 for the Prime Minister and a £74,000 basic salary for an MP.
Other jobs currently advertised by the council include a customer service agent with a starting salary of £18,249, receptionist (£13,909) and a maths teacher – between £22,194 and £35,409.
The Highland Council says its chief executive’s salary is £142,296.
Details of the Argyll and Bute vacancy are here.
The local authorities are cramned with folks iin the £80k to £130k range. Topped up with excellent Pensions these folks usually retire around mid to late fifties with fabulous additional efficiency claimed golden goodbyes running to hundreds of thousands of pounds. Indeed anecdotal comment from informed sources say that in neighbouring West Dunbartonshire the Executive Director for Education who announced his retirement after 38 years actually left with a £300k top up efficiency saving. Not bad if you can get it iits a right of passage for some to add to their ready considerable pension.