The Last Day of Kevin Lavery
Today, is the last day of Kevin Lavery’s tenure as CEO of Cornwall Council. It has been a roller coaster ride for both staff and Councillors. It has been no mean feat to turn six local authorities and one County Council into one authority. And I think he has steered the ship well though very troubled waters.
The leaving ceremony was kicked off by one of Bert Biscoe’s poems. Then, the Chairman of Cornwall Council said a few kind words and presented Kevin with a beautiful painting. The interim CEO followed up with a few behind the scene quips.
Finally, Kevin praised the Council, its staff, its Councillors and outside partners. Which is a testament to the journey the council has taken over the last four years.
For me, I think Kevin has been a good CEO and I wish him all the best at his new authority.
Unfairly pilloried all the way through his extraordinarily
difficult job. Usually by armchair experts who’d never met him. By
rights the conversion of 6 local authorities into 1, merging
endless officer roles and departments into 1 should have been an
unmitigatede shambles. It was not and that has to be down to the
guy at the top, any organisation is only as good or as bad as the
person who leads it. Along the way the failing Adult Care dept was
mostly sorted as well as other inefficient areas of the Council.
And who can name the previous CEOs? Thought so. This one was brave
enough to put his head over the parapet and make a stand and
express opinions. He was paid less than any normal CEO of a
business with a turnover way under the £1.3bn of CC yet was
constantly criticised for (part) accepting the salary that others
offered him. Who wouldn’t? Pay peanuts, get monkeys. He didn’t take
time off for stress, he didn’t run when the going got tough until
it reached the point where there was a fundamental schism between
his views of how the Council could weather collapsing income and
most Cllrs. Lets hope PM can carry on in a similar way. Already
privately people are talking aprehensively about a risk averse
regime at Treyew Rd with new Officers and Cllrs in danger of slowly
running the UKs poorest County into the mud…. Lets hope they are
wrong.
2 excellent posts, i agree from what i saw Mr Lavery was an excellent CEO – its always very easy to knock but remember what the previous councty council was like – failing services and always over budget even in affluent times – people moan nowadays but look at the cuts being imposed by the government – thanks for all you have done Kevin and good luck for the future. As for the interim CEO – seems like a nice bloke but this is a very big council – has he got big enough feet to fill the shoes when the going gets even tougher??
I admit that I am guilty of having been a critic of Mr Lavery, whilst I always recognised his success in bringing the unitary authority into action and his achievements of the massive savings made within Cornwall Council, I did however disagree with the full JV intention and the apparent lack of democracy associated with it, as did presumably all those that signed the petition.
Lots of phrase for his work on the unitary authority…remind me again, this was the unitary authority.no one wanted, voted against, but had it rammed through anyway? Lol, I love Cornish democracy, talk about never knowingly undersold!
He didn’t run when the going got tough?! Mate, he was job hunting before the BT deal was even done, what are you talking about? While we were all stressing over it, good ole Kev was on a first class flight out to New Zealand for his job interview.
Oh good lord, excuse the typos in my last comment!!!