Neil Wilby Media

A local council widely regarded as the most opaque in the country – and routinely smeared, rightly or wrongly, as the most corrupt – is set to lose at least another four of its very senior paid officers.

Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council, over the past several years, has seen a large number of top-ranking officers head for the exit door as it staggers from one crisis to the next and Civic Centre morale plummets. 

The high profile departures include Carolyn Wilkins (chief executive), Helen Lockwood (deputy chief executive), Rebekah Sutcliffe (head of strategy), Mark Warren (director of adult social care), Mark Stenson (assistant director of corporate governance), Lewis Greenwood (assistant director of strategy and performance) and Anne Ryans (director of finance). This list is very unlikely to be exhaustive.

Mark Warren’s departure will be the subject of a separate future article as it, allegedly, involves a grotesque but well-engineered ‘cover-up’ by the current chief executive, Harry Catherall, and the Council Leader, Cllr Arooj Shah that, viewed through the lens of this journalist, should see the departure of both from public life, together with the beneficiary of that same concealment. Mark currently holds a similar role with Blackburn and Darwen Council where ‘Sir Harry’ served for most of his career before his highly lucrative post-retirement sinecure in Oldham.

Well-respected Anne Ryans retired after many years of sterling service and her replacement was difficult to find and appoint. Oldham Council, with its appalling reputation, locally, regionally and nationally, and its well rehearsed low morale issues, is not an organisation competent or aspirational professionals would be rushing to join. 

The latest list of impending departures, according to several very well placed sources, includes Deputy Chief Executive, Sayyed Osman MBE; Borough Solicitor, Paul Entwistle; Director of Children’s Services, Gerard Jones; and Head of Constitutional Services, Elizabeth Drogan.

Said to be bitterly disappointed at the way he was treated, and then overlooked, in the recent chief executive selection process, Sayyed Osman is returning to Blackburn and Darwen Council.

The long overdue departure of hapless, hopeless Paul Entwistle (pictured above centre), who must be one of the worst Borough Solicitors in the country, if not the lowest ranked, was exclusively forecast earlier this year by Neil Wilby Media. Attempts, internally, to prise him from the role, in which he appears to fail miserably at every turn, have been ongoing for almost three years. It is another stain on the standing of the Labour administration that he wasn’t put on a disciplinary process at the outset, both internally and via the Solicitors’ Regulatory Authority, and sacked. There was, and still is, ample evidence to support such proceedings.

Retirement beckons for Gerard Jones, best and notoriously known for what many viewed as a witless performance at an infamous Extraordinary Meeting of the Council in June, 2022 at which the outcome of an independent investigation of their (and the police’s) failings over child sexual exploitation were aired (read more here). The Labour administration has also, apparently, allowed him to break a promise he made long ago, at interview, to re-locate to the Oldham area.

One of the reasons why Mrs Drogan (pictured above right) is leaving the Council is known to the author of this article but the public interest is not served by revealing it widely, nor is the reason why she has been mostly absent from her post for the past several months. It can be said, however, as sufficient evidence exists, that, although well-liked within the Civic Centre, her leadership qualities and more general under-performance as a senior officer leaves her open to criticism more than occasionally.

On 21st December, 2023, a press request was made for comment from the Council Leader and/or chief executive on this latest senior officer exodus. It asked, specifically, that ‘the statement would ideally cover why this situation – of substantial public interest on any independent view – has been concealed from, variously, the Cabinet, Group Leaders, senior Labour Party councillors, independent councillors, other senior paid officers and the press’.

Very much in line with the Council Leader’s well-practiced media strategy (read in full here), this is the response from a Council spokesperson, not Cllr Shah, the ‘Cover-Up Queen’, or Sir Harry:

“To confirm – no decisions have been made on budget savings as yet, let alone behind closed doors. There is also no “impending departure” of senior officers {The emphasis on ‘no’ is the Council’s].

“All budget options, including any potential savings to the senior management team, will be fully consulted and then decided upon at Budget Council in February. Like other respected media outlets, you will be briefed on our budget savings in due course.”

So, the reader is left with a choice. Believe a journalist who has, over the past three years, written over one hundred well-sourced or evidenced articles exposing Oldham Council’s miserable failings, blatant wrongdoing, constitution busting and routine law-breaking (with not a single paragraph subject to complaint or application) or that same local authority where deceit and opacity has been proved, over and over again, to be instinctive.

The Council’s press office was offered an opportunity to provide a revised and more relevant statement, after seeing an excerpt from this article, but did not acknowledge or respond to that email.

The four ‘leavers’ have all been offered right of reply.

Footnote: The police officer in the above picture, C/Supt Chris Bowen, also mysteriously left Oldham and his District Commander post in July, 2023 (read more here). The Council has consistently claimed that they do not know the reason why he left, despite Cllr Shah being a close personal friend of the Chief Constable, Stephen Watson.

Follow Neil Wilby on Twitter (here) and Neil Wilby Media on Facebook (here) for signposts to any updates.

Page last updated: Saturday 23rd December, 2023 at 0745 hours

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Picture credit: OMBC

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