The top job in MidCoast Council will not be advertised in ‘Positions Vacant’ after the September 9 election.
Newly elected councillors will not be tasked with the job of finding a general manager as administrator John Turner earlier this month removed the ‘interim’ on the title of Glenn Handford after a confidential performance review.
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The decision falls within the legislated authority of an administrator, and today Mr Handford is defending Mr Turner’s decision to act two months before the election and council’s choice to not announce the appointment to the community.
Mr Handford’s contract runs until 2021 and he says “a false impression was given by the title of interim general manager”.
The conversation to “tidy-up the role” first came from Mr Turner in December, Mr Handford said.
“He said ‘I want to ensure your position has been sorted out’,” Mr Handford said.
Mr Handford is quick to quash the suggestion that MidCoast Council deliberately withheld the information about his appointment from the community.
Seriously, there is no conspiracy theory.
- MidCoast Council general manager Glenn Handford.
“The report that appointed me as general manager went up in late June and I went on holidays in July, and I must admit it wasn’t entering my brain. I was so busy focusing on the integration of MidCoast Water into MidCoast Council.
“In my mind it makes no difference. It doesn’t worry me whether I’m interim general manager or general manager because at the end of the day in my mind it’s irrelevant, because I was going to be employed beyond September anyway.
“The State government appointed interim general managers across the 20 merged councils – all of those interim general managers were appointed on their current contracts, most of which were multi-year contracts.
“Because of the complexities of the position, we are one of the few triple merged councils in the State and now with the inclusion of MidCoast Water which brings us essentially to be a quadrupled merged council, because of the complexities around that, the administrator decided to appoint me as the general manager.”
Mr Handford wants to “continue in the role as general manager because I think MidCoast Council has a phenomenal future.”
“We can be seen as a significant player in regional NSW, the work that we have achieved under my leadership as a recently merged council has been recognised on many occasions by the State government.
I’m really looking forward to engaging with the new elected council. Seriously, one of the reasons I stay in local government is that I actually enjoy working with the elected council and creating a vision and making that vision happen. I am enthusiastic about the new council.
- MidCoast Council general manager Glenn Handford.
Mr Handford says Mr Turner’s decision does not change the fact that the new council will have the power to end his appointment.
“They can still do that. All they have to do is pay me out, in the previous world they had to pay me out, in the new world they have to pay me out, in any world they have to pay me out. In my mind, my contract runs for many years and whether I was interim general manager didn’t make much difference.”
Mr Handford did not wish to disclose his remuneration for the general manager role, advising that it would be “reported in the annual report and be available in September.”
However, he stressed that “it should be seen in the context of what I deliver” for the MidCoast local government area.
“I know all people didn’t particularly want the Special Rate Variation (SRV) but we got that through my leadership - the SRV - we got the government to amend its legislation, we will now use that money.”
