At Lancashire County Council (LCC), the highly lucrative position of Chief Executive is set to be handed over on a permanent basis to a very lucky bureaucrat!
The role comes with an eye-watering yearly salary of £236,960 – £60,000 more than the prime minister, and equivalent to a staggering £122.82 per hour!
In addition to this comes ‘Section 151’ status, granting him control over the council’s finances.
With great privilege comes great responsibility – this much is understood by those at Preston’s County Hall, who won’t make the decision of who to appoint lightly: only the most loyal servant of the ruling class will do!
Mark Wynn, who has acted as interim boss since August 2024, has been recommended for the position long-term, after proving himself capable of making the ‘tough decisions’ which will be required of him in order to keep the council afloat.
According to LCC itself, this nomination comes following a “rigorous and competitive recruitment process”.
After an impressive display over the past few months – standing firm against social care workers’ demands for better pay for their increased workloads – Wynn has won the support of his colleagues on the council’s Employment Committee, who endorsed his appointment. The final decision will be made by a full council vote on the 26 February.
One of Wynn’s biggest fans is Tory councillor and LCC leader Phillippa Williamson, who said:
“Mark is a proven leader who has made a big impact since joining the council, helping to drive change and transform the way we deliver services to the people of Lancashire.”
High praise! But what exactly does all this ‘change’, ‘impact’, and ‘transformation’ actually mean in the real world?
For the social care workers who have repeatedly been forced to go out on strike as part of a months-long dispute, and for the recipients of the services mentioned above, things are only getting worse. Meanwhile, the upper management at LCC treats itself shamelessly to ever-fatter paycheques.
According to Wynn, “it is no secret that this is a demanding time for local government as a whole, with many challenges ahead. But I am pleased to say that the council is in an extremely good position to deliver its ambitious vision for the future.”
These comforting words will mean precisely nothing, however, to the 1.2 million people living under the council’s jurisdiction.
Austerity coming
In reality, the new Chief Executive will oversee further service cuts and attacks on workers, as LCC tries to plug financial gaps in its budget by saving £80 million by 2027, as outlined in its 2024 Medium Term Financial Strategy.
Such austerity measures are not a result of individual malice, or of ideological agendas – they are demanded by the economic situation, both nationally and internationally.
As the capitalist crisis bites, an increasing number of councils and local authorities across the country are either hiking council tax, or handing in Section 114 notices and declaring themselves bankrupt, with more approaching breaking point.
As always, it is the workers who are being made to pay for this crisis, and not the billionaires whose system created this mess.
The whole system is rotten from head to toe. We need to clear out all of these privileged bureaucrats from local and national governments. They only act in the interests of the ruling class: attacking workers whilst stuffing their own pockets with our hard-earned money.
We need democratically-elected officials on workers’ wages, who we can recall if needed. We need class fighters who will take bold measures to improve the lives of working people and society as a whole.
Members of the Revolutionary Communist Party in Preston are organising to support local workers – including the social care workers striking this week and next – in their fight against the capitalists’ henchmen in local government.
