THE decision to axe the top job at Oxfordshire County Council will be reviewed after its leader admitted he rushed it through.

Last night council leader Ian Hudspeth said he would be apologising to the council after it was revealed the decision to scrap the chief executive role was not valid.

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 Ian Hudspeth

The move was voted through by the Conservative-Independent Alliance last week, during a full council meeting.

It would have made the position redundant by June and granted chief executive Joanna Simons a redundancy package amounting to almost £600,000.

But last night, county council Conservative leader Mr Hudspeth admitted that, after receiving further legal advice, the decision was now under review.


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Mr Hudspeth said: “I have acted in haste and I accept full responsibility for this.

“I wanted it as part of the budget proposals and that was part of the pressure, but we can now work it up for next year.

“The review will be a full one that looks at the impact of removing [Ms Simons’] post and be led by my deputy leader Rodney Rose.

“Given that it was a very close vote at the council meeting and lots of concerns have been raised, I want to now work with the opposition.”

He said the decision was called into question when the Labour party threatened to mount a judicial review.

During last week’s meeting councillors questioned its footing, but were told by county solicitor and monitoring officer Peter Clark: “It is full council that makes this determination.”

But Mr Hudspeth said it should have gone through several stages of scrutiny before the final decision was made: “At the time we thought everything was correct, but then on review we reached the conclusion it was not.

“I will apologise to council at the next full meeting.”

The changes would not affect this year’s budget, he said, and chief executive Ms Simons had agreed to stay in her position.

A decision on whether the position will still be made redundant will now be the subject of a cross party review.

Mr Hudspeth said it would then be scrutinised by a committee, before returning to cabinet so it could be consider by full council again.

He added: “The review will start as soon as possible.”

Labour leader Liz Brighouse - who had called for the decision to be delayed - last night said her party had been “totally vindicated”.

She revealed that her party had been prepared to mount a judicial review of the move but had withdrawn that threat after meeting with Mr Hudspeth yesterday[feb26].

She said: “This was not responsible politics. This proposal should never have made it to full council and the responsibility for that lies with the leader.”

Neil Fawcett, acting Liberal Democrat leader on the county council, said: “Mr Hudspeth needs to think very carefully about the way he is leading the council.

“This whole issue raises serious question marks about the way in which this was rushed through.

“I assume they will now look at what went wrong and how to make sure this never happens again.”

During last week’s council meeting, Mr Hudspeth said the decision to remove the post of chief executive was purely based on cost-saving.

He said it would save the authority £250,000, but conceded that he did not know how all of Ms Simons’ powers would be re-distributed.

But questions had been raised about whether the move was related to the release of a serious case review report into how girls in council care in Oxford were allowed to be groomed and raped for eight years.

In 2013, seven men were sentenced to a total of 95 years in prison for crimes including rape, facilitating child prostitution, and trafficking for sexual exploitation following the police’s Operation Bullfinch.

The case review will be published on Tuesday[mar3] and is expected to criticise the county council and its leadership. Mr Hudspeth has previously warned it could put jobs on the line.

But last night he denied the announcement of Ms Simons’ departure had been hastened to come before the release of the report.

He said: “The two are totally separate.”

He would not be drawn on whether Ms Simons’ redundancy package could be reduced if she was heavily criticised by the review.