Cambridgeshire County Council chief executive: ‘There is lots of unmet need and it’s been growing’
“If you cut me open, it will be like a stick of rock, you’ll see ‘public servant’ inside,” says Cambridgeshire County Council’s new chief executive.
But with rising demand and decreasing funding, Shire Hall’s Stephen Moir has a challenge on his hands. The county council is tasked with balancing the books against a backdrop of significant financial pressures while improving quality of life in a county with “deep rooted issues of inequality” and tackling the ever-growing issues around climate change.
Mr Moir tells the Cambridge Independent: “Cambridgeshire is not unique – county councils generally are under significant financial pressure. That’s because we have many demand-led services: social care and health are areas that particularly come to mind.
“In some ways, while Covid might have reduced demand for a short period, we know for a fact that there is a level of unmet need that has been growing during the pandemic and we’re going to end up having to deal with it.”
Mr Moir has been in post for almost two months after taking over from former chief executive Gillian Beasley, who had been in the role since 2016.
He is solely responsible for the county council after the decision was made to sever the previously joint role with Peterborough City Council.
Mr Moir was a director for the county council between 2005 and 2011 before taking voluntary redundancy and moving on. But, he had always felt a sense of “unfinished business”.
Explaining his desire to return, he describes Cambridgeshire as a place he knows and loves, and one with family connections.
But Cambridgeshire has been impacted by “10 years-plus of austerity” and funded using a formula based on “outdated information” he says, with the government reliant on Office for National Statistics data from 2013.
“Cambridgeshire has always been a rapidly growing county with more demands on key services. It’s really important that the government bases its funding formula on accurate data. We’re very keen to try and work with government and others to get a fairer funding settlement in place.
“I think it’s also fair to say that we know government themselves are going to find it challenging, particularly on the back of the Covid costs. But quite frankly, that’s the government’s responsibility.
“My responsibility and our politicians’ responsibility is getting the right deal for the people of Cambridgeshire and making sure we can deliver the best possible services.”
Mr Moir says he is excited and enthused by the joint administration’s agenda for Cambridgeshire.
He says: “I’m really clear that if we want to deliver the political mandate from our joint administration of a fairer, greener and more caring Cambridgeshire, that comes with a price tag. It’s not just about doing more with what we have now. It’s also about actually needing better funding coming into the place.”
But with multiple authorities across the county – parish, district and city councils, the Combined Authority and the Greater Cambridge Partnership – could public money be saved and decision-making made more efficient by slimming down this bloated structure?
“We’ve got quite a complex system,” Mr Moir admits. “If I’m honest that is probably no different to other parts of the UK.
“In my experience, it’s how you work. How do you work to get the best outcomes by working well with others? We can’t do everything as a county council.
“One of my key priorities is how do we make the system work better together to get the right outcomes.
“What’s the perception of members of the public? The honest answer is I don’t think the public really cares who does it as long as it gets done. We can talk about bureaucracy, we can talk about having complexity in different layers but the reality is if we make it work, it shouldn’t matter to members of the public how we’re organised. I think that’s the key thing.”
Mr Moir has previously held a number of senior posts in local government and the NHS. He joins Cambridgeshire from the City of Edinburgh Council, where he was executive director of corporate services, and previous positions have included chief people officer at NHS England and deputy chief executive at the Yorkshire Ambulance Service NHS Trust.
Mr Moir is also keen to bring council services closer to the communities they serve, especially in the wake of the pandemic.
“How do we make sure they can access? And I don’t mean just using digital. I mean, how can we contact a member of county council staff who can signpost them, who can give them advice and help.
“We’ve got a number of buildings across the county that are really good examples of being rooted in the communities. I’m going to use libraries as the obvious examples.
“Libraries and schools, frankly, are hubs that are at the heart of that community. So what can we do to use those facilities and the people that we employ in them to better help and direct people to what they need rather than them having to navigate that for themselves?”
By utilising these community hubs and also taking into account flexible working patterns, the council will have to get the “balance right between using council premises” and working from different places.
Mr Moir says: “We do quite well in terms of bringing money in – on our rural estates, our county farm estates we gain income through our tenants and there a number of other things we do around our property portfolio in terms of leases. It’s important to look at how we can generate funds for public services in a slightly different way. At the same time, I think it’s also about how we manage our money.”
It was in Mr Moir’s first week in the role that the ‘Farmgate’ report detailing the code of conduct breaches by former councillor Roger Hickford was released.
Among the breaches, the former deputy leader was found to have bullied officers and to have used his position to receive concessions that the county council would not have otherwise have agreed to, in relation to a council farm tenancy.
Mr Moir says advocacy of robust Nolan Principles in public life (selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership) come with him to his role.
Mr Moir says: “We have a zero tolerance approach to bullying, to harassment, to victimisation, to intimidation. Where we have issues that people want to speak out or raise concerns or blow the whistle, they need to feel safe, they need to feel supported to do that, but they also need to know that if they raise those concerns, we will deal with them properly and robustly.
“Do I think it was dealt with as quickly as I would like? No, absolutely not. I recognise it was a complex situation, but I’m really conscious that we’ve got a duty to support our staff.
“We’ve also got a duty to the public to make sure that public policy is being used wisely. And most importantly, our politicians have a duty to ensure that they’re operating and behaving in a way that is how the electorate and indeed how we as their staff want them to act.
“So it’s an area that we’ll continue to focus on but I’ve been really clear from the outset that this is not the type of organisation we will be.”
Mr Moir concludes: “The pandemic is something we’re continuing to have to tackle. We might be out of restrictions but we’re far from out of the pandemic. It’s still having a deep impact on individuals, on families and on our services.
“So balancing all of that big agenda around a fairer, greener and more caring Cambridgeshire, we’ve still got to tackle the pandemic and make sure we manage that properly as well.”
He adds: “Having a fresh perspective is a good way of looking at how we can do things differently, how we can do things better, and more importantly, how we can deliver better outcomes to the people of Cambridgeshire.”
