Council chief executive quits £184k job after 'unacceptable' failures

The chief executive of Tameside Council has quit following a string of failings in the authority's children's services.

Sandra Steward did not attend a tense full council meeting focused on the department last night. The town hall later released a statement which confirmed she was stepping down from her £184,767 a year job, to focus on her role heading up the Greater Manchester Pension Fund.

Tameside children's services received an inadequate rating from Ofsted back in February 2024, the second inadequate judgement within a five year period. The report revealed 'unacceptable working practices and conditions for staff at the council', local MPs said.

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The government ordered a Children’s Commissioner review into the capability and capacity of the council to operate children's services. In the eight months since the Ofsted result, the deputy leader of the town hall, Coun Bill Fairfoull, was replaced in his role leading children's services by Coun Teresa Smith

Now director of resources, Ashley Hughes, will act up as chief executive as the authority secures more suitable interim arrangements and a permanent appointment is made, it said.

A statement from Ms Steward read: "The leader and I have agreed that I will become the Chief Executive of the £32 billion Greater Manchester Pension Fund to deal with the national agenda that Government is currently setting, and we will search for a new Chief Executive (Head of Paid Service) to lead the Council through the next phase of improvement.

"The council will be starting the permanent recruitment process over the coming weeks and in the meantime, to enable me to focus on the priorities at the Pension Fund, interim arrangements will be put in place to ensure we have a continuous Chief Executive and Place Based Lead for Tameside. Further updates regarding arrangements in the short term will be provided in the coming days.

"We also can’t lose sight of the fact that ensuring ordinary people working in public sector jobs serving their communities, get to live out their retirement years with security and dignity is a noble cause."

Speaking after the news broke last night, Stalybridge and Hyde MP Jonathan Reynolds, on behalf of all three Tameside MPs, said: "As Members of Parliament for Tameside, myself, Angela Rayner and Andrew Gwynne welcome the resignation of the former Chief Executive Sandra Stewart.

"The recent commissioner’s report into TMBC’s Children’s Services revealed unacceptable working practices and conditions for staff at the council. In our view this has been to detriment of delivering the services our constituents need and expect.

“Since the publication of the report we have made clear that a change of corporate leadership was required. Tameside now has the opportunity to move forward and we embrace the chance to do so.”

The full council meeting on Tuesday night delved deeper into the children’s services issues but ended with a matter being discussed in private - out of earshot of members of the public who were barred from the room in Droylsden's Guardsman Tony Downs House.

Holding a private agenda item is rare during full council meetings. The council gave answers shortly after the meeting ended which detailed a letter sent from the former chief executive to elected members of the council.

This comes on the back of a scrutiny panel meeting last month regarding children's services where Ms Stewart was in attendance.