Wakefield appoint new Service Director – Education & Inclusion

We are delighted to have supported Wakefield Council on the recent appointment of their Service Director – Education and Inclusion. Following on from similar appointments in Leeds and Bradford, these high profile roles are some of the most challenging to recruit to in local government with generally small candidate fields. Councils’ changing role in maintained provision alongside academies and free schools, whilst operating with constrained budgets mean that candidates have to be capable managers and leaders but generate positive relationships with key partnerships for the whole system to flourish. As skills funding has been cut the link to FE and employers is also an essential role for councils in ensuring post-16 opportunities are available for young people.

If you are an authority looking to recruit to such a role and would like to discuss the insights gained during these search processes, please do get in touch. Alternatively if you are working in Education/Skills now as an inspector, advisor, headteacher, consultant or working in a council service and considering your next move please contact us for a confidential discussion.

Coming soon!

We are excited about the new roles we will be recruiting in the near future. Keep checking in for more details under the “Roles” heading.

Chief Officer – Financial Services at Leeds City Council

Assistant Director – Education and Skills – Newcastle City Council

Coming Soon

We are excited about the new roles we will be recruiting in the near future. Keep checking in for more details under the “Roles” heading. Chief Officer – Financial Services at Leeds City Council Assistant Director – Education and Skills – Newcastle City Council  

Irish waste water specialist makes latest acquisition

A Cheshire-based business has been acquired by an Irish provider of services to the water and waste process technologies sector.

Apex Industries Ltd trades as Cap Technology and Adamelia, both of which are based on the Hampton Heath Industrial Estate. The former is involved in the supply and installation of industrial effluent treatment plants, while the latter works in the gelatin industry.

The group has been bought by FLI Global, which is headquartered in Waterford and has grown both organically and by targeted acquisition since its incorporation in 1989.

Stewart Mills and John Hampson, founding directors of Apex Industries, said: “This is an exciting time for the business and we look forward to using the capability of the wider FLI Group to grow the both businesses going forward.”

DTM Legal, led by head of corporate and commercial Ed Barnes, acted for the owners of Apex Industries.

“The transaction, which involved both our corporate and commercial and property teams, was a pleasure to work on and the real synergies between both parties means I am sure the businesses will continue to expand and thrive,” said Barnes.

Proventure Consulting acted as corporate adviser to Apex Industries and the vendors, with team leader David Plant adding: “From initial meeting through to completion it became apparent that this deal had massive potential for both sides and the whole process was seamless.”

Why have IR35 rules changed for the public sector?

Employment lawyer Simon Whitehead explains the reasons behind the new regulations, and the effects that are already being felt by employers

It’s more than a decade since the Inland Revenue merged with Her Majesty’s Customs and Excise to become HMRC, yet the spirit of the IR’s 35th press release of 1999 not only lives on, it’s been reinvigorated. New rules from April 2017 target those working via intermediaries in the public sector. Those engaging contractors through a personal service company (PSC) in, and recruitment agencies supplying such workers to, the public sector will have already felt the pinch.

Why the change?

‘Off-payroll working rules’, or IR35, is designed to combat ‘disguised employment’.

Employers deduct income tax and national insurance contributions (NICs) on behalf of their employees and account to HMRC for this. They pay employer NICs too. In contrast, self-employed contractors are themselves liable to account to HMRC. Many work through their own PSC, which ‘employs’ them to do the work.

A key driver for deciding to work (or for engaging ‘contractors’) via either a PSC or another intermediary is the perceived tax benefit of doing so. The PSC/intermediary model is particularly popular in certain industries.

The Exchequer isn’t fond of this model. The tax saving (for the former-employee-now-contractor and their former-employer-now-engager) is the Exchequer’s loss. As the PSC bandwagon has gathered momentum, the resultant hole in the Exchequer’s money pot has grown.

And, of course, as the government has been at pains to point out, there’s an inherent unfairness to it all, too. The contractor may be working alongside his former co-employees, doing equal work, but for different pay: where’s the level playing field in that? (Not to mention that those shrewd former co-employees may think the same thing, jumping off ‘HMS employed’ to join the merry ‘self-employed’ crew.)

IR35 is designed to combat this. It looks at the bigger picture and asks: is the contractor who is doing the work (via the intermediary), someone who looks and smells like they should be an employee of the person engaging them (the end-user)?

If they do, IR35 decrees that the PSC/intermediary must account to HMRC for income tax and national insurance by making a deemed employment payment.

New rules

That’s all well and good, but IR35 had an inherent weakness – the enforcement problem. The rules may have shifted responsibility on to the contractor’s own PSCs, but ‘what if’ those PSCs did not account as they should? It’s been a big ‘if’: IR35 non-compliance allegedly cost the Exchequer approximately £440m in 2016-17 alone.

So, from April 2017, new rules have shifted the responsibility in the public sector for accounting to HMRC for income tax and national insurance, taking it away from the PSC and giving it instead to the public sector end-user (or where the worker is engaged via a recruitment agency to work in the public sector, the agency).

And now?

This has created some real headaches for public sector engagers, such as public authorities, the NHS, police forces and schools. They now have the unenviable task of deciding whether a worker, supplied to them via an intermediary, should be treated as a ‘deemed employee’. If it’s a ‘yes’, they must account for them to HMRC.

While HMRC has issued an online ‘tool’ to help, public authorities and recruitment agencies are rarely experts in finely balanced questions of tax status. As the buck now stops with them, they have been adopting a cautious approach.

If this continues, we might start to see a move back towards the employee model (in the public sector at least). But the public sector would have to be desirable enough to attract and retain the employees it needs, and the ripples from other butterflies’ wings’ beats (Brexit, pay freezes and court judgments, to name but three) could each create their own waves in the meantime.

Simon Whitehead is an employment lawyer and managing partner of HRC Law. Article on CIPD

cyrcla – new relationship management app launched

Proventure is delighted to have launched the new app “cyrcla” on the App Store this week. A personal networking/basic CRM designed to support individuals in developing better relationships, cyrcla provides measures and analysis of the ever so important quality aspect of relationships and influence. Here’s a link to it – www.cyrcla.com. It’s free.  Feel free to share with anyone you think might want to use it who has lots of work related relationships and are always juggling time and effort to manage them effectively, plus gain some analysis of their relationships. We think the analysis will help people decide how they best invest in their circles of influence and get best return.

cyrcla is Apple only for now, android is next. The next version will be an organisational one that will aggregate data confidentially, to enable a detailed analysis of relationships internally and externally. The current free one has some good analysis though with more features to come for the individual user. All data is private and confidential. We have no access to it. Other users cannot see what you are doing, your private notes or who you are linked to unlike LinkedIn.

So go ahead and download it. It’s really simple, intuitive and essentially enables visualisation of our networks more easily.

cyrcla is on Twitter for news and updates.

Leeds City Council – Director Children and Families

Role appointed to

Leeds City Council – Director Children and Families (£137 – 149k)

Leeds is a diverse, vibrant, urban place, with a rich range of communities and life-experiences. Our vision is that we become the ‘Best city in the UK’ by 2030, which means:

  • Leeds will be fair, open and welcoming
  • Leeds’ economy will be prosperous and sustainable
  • All Leeds’ communities will be successful

Candidates need to show that they are capable of operating at this level within major urban areas, with an awareness of what’s going on at an international, not simply national, level. Extensive experience of operating services on a metropolitan scale is essential, and we want to hear from individuals who are able to show that they can lead with genuine innovation, influencing peers, elected members and partners, to embed a progressive agenda across all children’s services.

Our commitment to becoming a true Child Friendly City is significant – we feel proud to be pioneers of major change. We have accepted the challenge of integrating the formative stages of children and young people’s lives into our vision of Leeds’ future, and this culture shift is already producing lasting change in the way we approach major economic and social strategies.

As a consequence, we’re genuinely more interested in your appetite to do things that haven’t been done yet, than simply to adopt best practice harvested from elsewhere. So while your professional background is important to us, its your ability to show that you can speak with authority and nuance on the main agendas of social work, education and child health. Able to forge and sustain relationships both within and beyond the council, you’ll show resilience, sophistication and a high degree of readiness to excel in a culture of high support and high challenge.

Bolton Council – AD Children and Families

Role appointed to

Assistant Director – Children and Families (up to £88k)

This role is critical to the leadership of the People Department.  One of our future priorities is ensuring increased integration with health across Greater Manchester works for Bolton. We’re helping to shape thinking in Children’s Services across Greater Manchester while taking our services to the next level through effective partnerships.  This will be a key area for the new Assistant Director.

This role will inevitably bring a strong focus on safeguarding and outcomes for our Looked After Children.  We perform strongly in this area.  Whilst there can always be surprises, we believe our stability, culture and values guide us through tough times.  We focus on developing new services, bringing new approaches, learning from others and being positive about the future.  In a market where firefighting, recovery and chaos is all too common, this makes us stand out.

Our new AD will have strong roots in safeguarding and Looked After Children.  They will know good performance and will set high standards.  They will value the team and add to the culture that supports its words with actions.  This role is all about evolving our services in a sustainable way.  Our focus is on the relentless, consistent, onward march of progress and innovation that improves life for all.  We eschew quick wins, snazzy headlines and self-promotion because too often these are built on sand.  Our new AD will get this.  In fact, we think they’ll relish an environment that helps them to grow alongside our services.  We offer the strong foundations needed to change a generation and create the best services in England.  That’s our ambition for our children and our place.  If this different approach sounds like the kind of organisation you’ve always wanted to be a part of, then we’d love to speak to you.

Newcastle City Council – Chief Operational Officer

Role appointed to

Newcastle City Council – Chief Operational Officer (£90 – 95k)

This role has been created to bring a step-change in our customer focus, quality of service and internal culture.  We want to embrace the best and most appropriate service models to make us fit for the future and best serve the city.

Overseeing approximately 2150 (FTE) staff, a net budget of 7.294 m services covered include:

  • Street Services (Refuse, Cleansing and Grounds Maintenance)
  • Parking Services
  • Waste Contracts
  • Building Maintenance & Commercial Works
  • Civic Management and Facility Services
  • Markets and Community Hubs
  • Library Services.

The services have one unifying theme – they all provide highly visible services to our people, our communities and our businesses.  Leading such a breadth of services, the COO will have:

  • Led relevant, highly customer focussed services
  • Driven successful culture change in a highly political environment
  • Modernised relevant services, having improved efficiency and quality
  • Engaged communities, businesses, politicians and staff to shape change
  • A deep understanding of alternative delivery models
  • Resilience, credibility and judgement

The COO will bring these diverse services together into a cohesive whole; sharing best practice, innovating, empowering staff, working with key partners and bringing the flexible, nimble and positive culture to create confidence about the future.  This will be a tough role.  There will be misgivings and doubts along the way.  But there will also be support, passion, pride and talent on which to build positive change.