My Mayoral Plan: Point 3

In previous posts, I have outlined the first 2 of my 3 point plan to deal with the coming financial challenge, if I become Mayor of Lewisham. The first is to be honest about the estimated £52 million worth of cuts that will have to be made over the next 4 years and what that is likely to mean for Council services. We cannot hope to build a broad-based coalition across Lewisham to fight Tory Austerity unless we are honest about the scale of the problem. The second point is to conduct a review of the way the Council governs with the express intention of streamlining its structures and modernising its Constitution. My personal commitment is that, if I become Mayor, I will govern initially with a Cabinet of 2, compared to a Cabinet of 9 which the Constitution allows and is the case at present. I will consider increasing this to 4 after 6 months. I anticipate that ensuring that this review endorses radical recommendations will be challenging because it will mean changing the role of Councillors and reducing some allowances. However, my judgement is that this is the right way forward.

Over the last few years I have met with a number of former senior managers of the Council. I wanted to gain their insight into what Lewisham was like to run and how they thought things could be improved. This, together with my own experience and judgement has led me to develop my third point. We must make changes to the Council's senior management team. We need to appoint a new, full-time Chief Executive to lead on a programme of innovation and change. Once s/he is recruited we must appoint a new Transformation Team to support her/him.

During my time as Cabinet Member for Children & Young People, I have seen at first hand what a huge difference a change in senior leadership can make to the drive and direction of travel of an organisation. In the last 2 years, 3 out of the 4 most senior managers in this directorate changed, including the Director. These new professionals brought different experience, fresh ideas and new dynamism into the Directorate. As a result, we are seeing significant progress in the way we support schools to improve their performance and reduce exclusions and in the management and delivery of Children's Social Services.

Times have changed since the Mayoralty was introduced in 2002. Change has accelerated since Austerity was introduced in 2010. We need senior managers who are appointed to meet the challenges of the next 4 years and beyond, not the requirements of the past. This is not to denigrate current managers. It is merely a sensible, objective response to new circumstances. It requires leadership to identify what needs changing, set out a plan of change and then see the plan through to the end.

I believe that there are considerable opportunities for the Council to adopt a radical transformative agenda in the field of income generation, house-building and Adult Social Care, for example. But we need entrepreneurs and innovators, people who can disrupt existing structures and practices, to exploit them for the good of our residents. I am an entrepreneur. My business partner and I set up Hales Gallery in 1992. When we started we had no capital, no clients and little experience, just lots of enthusiasm. Yet we grew the business from nothing to an organisation run by a team of 9 people, operating out of 2 sites in London and New York, representing 17 artists and generating a turnover in excess of £3 million a year. I have been the general manager and finance director since we started. If I am elected Mayor, Lewisham will have the political leadership it needs to press forward and build a better place. But political leadership is not enough. We need the right blend of skills, professional experience and drive at the highest levels of management.

If you are seeking to be the Mayor, I do not believe that it is enough to say what you want to do. You need to set out how you plan to do it. My 3 point plan is an attempt to do that. It's an attempt to ensure that, as the new Mayor, I would hit the ground running. It demonstrates a determination to make sure that not a day is wasted. It shows I have a grip of the issues and challenges facing the Council and the ability and expertise to drive change forward. This is why I took the decision to put myself forward for selection and seek your support.