Departing Croydon Council CEO might not be replaced ...

 When Croydon Council's £180,000 (or £248,000, depending on who you believe) chief executive Jon Rouse resigned after only five years, I suggested that his vacant post might be abolished and shared with another local authority.

Now, it seems Council Leader Mike Fisher has taken my advice!  It's a m odel that has worked elsewhere.

The Croydon Advertiser reports that he may not be replaced when he departs on March 10.

Reporter Ian Austen writes, “the role could be absorbed into a new cheaper management structure.

He quotes Fisher, “I am not saying there will be a new chief executive and I am not saying there won't be. I am not ruling anything in or out.

"We will look at the structure of the senior management team to see what the most appropriate way forward is in the future."

Rouse has had a torrid time at Croydon, and a schizophrenic relationship with the media.  On his appointment he inexplicably ‘got down with the lads’ on a refuse round for the town hall newspaper, but subsequently, resolutely, refused to engage with the local media.  He argued that was the politicians’ job.  Not his.

Things came to a head recently when he made sure the press were thrown out of a partnership meeting in West Croydon looking at regenerating the area after the riots of August 2011.

He is taking up a senior civil service job on a (reportedly) lower salary than he enjoyed at Croydon.

Read more: Croydon Advertiser