Town Hall shambles: Chief Executive Linzi Roberts-Egan slams the scheme that her senior managers have been using to appraise staff performance, branding it ‘not fit for purpose’

Sometimes LBWF surprises even those who have followed its antics for many years.

As a previous post indicated, the Town Hall is now stuffed with several hundred senior managers, their number having quadrupled since 2015.

Many are well paid, too. Thus, 126 (about quarter) earn between £70,000 and £100,000 p.a.; while 37 earn £100,000 p.a. plus, topped off by the Chief Executive, Linzi Roberts-Egan, who is on £217,671 p.a., far more than the Prime Minister.

Given such numbers, it is reasonable to assume that the Town Hall must be tolerably well run.

Yet, an internal message that Ms Roberts-Egan has circulated today implies that the truth may be rather different.

She focuses on the scheme that her senior management team has been using to appraise staff performance, and is so withering about its suitability that her remarks are worth quoting at length:

‘In reviewing the outcomes of the appraisal scheme for 2023/24 with colleagues, we believe the current approach is not fit for purpose and we will be taking immediate action to address this.

The appraisal process should be a key tool in making sure that we are supporting our people, providing development opportunities, and ensuring you feel invested in, so that you can then do the very best on behalf of our residents.

However it is not working adequately, for example we only have an 80 per cent completion rate, so we know that at least 1 in 5 of our people are not receiving the development and support they deserve. In some areas of the Council the completion rate drops to 50 per cent. This is unacceptable…

There is inconsistency in the standard of the appraisals that people have received, and this can cause inequity…

To address this…

The appraisal process for 2024/25 has been paused.

A working group will be established to develop an interim approach for the autumn’.

Quite why this situation has come to light is unexplained, but it certainly won’t be welcomed. 

Staff in the Town Hall are unlikely to be impressed by the revelation that their senior managers, apparently without any qualms, have been assessing them using a scheme that now is branded ‘not fit for purpose’.

And as for residents, they will wonder at the sheer incompetence on display, and the cost of remediation, the latter, of course, coming out of their council tax.

Altogether, it’s a shambles, and one that is highly embarrassing for everyone concerned.