Hunt for new Scarborough Council Chief Executive begins this week

The borough authority’s current chief executive, Jim Dillon, announced last month that he would be retiring in June after 13 years at the town hall.

On Thursday, Scarborough Council’s appointments committee will meet to approve the hiring of a new person to fill the role and then set out how they will go about doing so.

The councillors will have to decide whether to take the option of looking in house for a replacement or advertising the £111,000 a year job to external candidates.

A report by Elaine Blades the council’s human resources manager states: “Should authority be given to recruit a chief executive, members are asked to consider whether or not they would wish to initially advertise the post internally and only open the post up to external applicants in the event that an appointment is not made.

“Alternatively, members could decide that they would prefer to test the market immediately and advertise both internally and externally at the same time.

“Recruiting internally is less expensive, quicker and the candidates will already be familiar with the council, its operations and business methods.

“In addition, the training process will also be quicker, and the transition will generally be smoother than bringing on a new employee. Conversely, recruiting an external candidate means access to a larger, more diverse talent pool of individuals who may be able to introduce a fresh perspective and new ideas to the organisation.”

The appointments committee, which is made up of three Conservative councillors, including the leader of the council Cllr Derek Bastiman, two Labour councillors as the largest opposition group and the leader of the Independent group Cllr Sam Cross, will also form an interview panel to quiz the candidates.

The three-person panel must include at least one member from the Labour party.

The report notes that Mr Dillon is due to step down from the council on June 30 and it could take up to six months to find a replacement.

The cost of the recruitment process is estimated at anywhere between £20,000 and £30,000.

The appointments panel make a recommendation to the full council, which will make the final appointment of a chief executive.

However, due to the upcoming borough elections on May 2 the council will enter purdah six weeks earlier in March, meaning no major decisions will be made by the authority during that time.

This means the appointment of the new chief executive could be the first decision of the new 46-person council in May.